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When you are sitting in a dentist chair, about to undergo a lengthy procedure, do you ever go to your "happy place"?  Whenever I am undergoing something unpleasant, sometimes even painful, or boring,  I try to go to a place mentally that makes me happy and relaxes me.  Some folks might call that meditation, but I am not clearing my mind, I am focusing it.  I shut out all the distractions of the moment, the tedium, the unpleasantness, and gather all my attention to the image or experience I am having in my mind.  The technique has served me well on a number of occasions.  

As artists, we have the ability and power to alter our consciousness in creative ways that don't depend on drugs or other artificial means.  We have the blessed gift of "seeing" mentally what is absent physically.  Not to say that other people don't have the same ability, but for visual artists, it already part of our natural process of creation.  Most of us are masters at it.

Sitting at the easel, I often don't really have in mind what I am going to paint...I have a general idea of subject matter, but other than that, I let the painting evolve (the exception is in the case of commissions with rigid requirements - technical skills needed there).  I begin to block in the major colors, and go from there.  It's like being at a general area you know, but starting down a path that is UNknown.  There are bound to be details and scenes that are only down that particular path.  Mentally, I begin to add the details my imagination sees.  Before you know it, the scene is before me, and the technical side of my mind kicks in, correcting values, adding colors to emphasize the depth of the work.  While I am actively analyzing the work, I am also experiencing the scene -- as if I am there, feeling the marsh wind on my face, and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, hearing the birds chirping in the distance and the lap of the water along the creek. 

Mental creation is a major part of being an artist. Creating art takes us to a happy place in our minds that we control, that we create.  What a profound blessing it is!