Hey, creative people I have a question for you. Those who can draw and paint: how do you keep an image in your head while doing that? Is this even trainable?

I can probably conjure an image in my mind's eye. Not in the greater detail, in parts mostly. A bunch of polaroid shots you can piece into one image like a puzzle. The moment I'm trying to sketch the image it shatters. Like suddenly all polaroids are garbled together and half of them didn't even develop properly.

@uplink
The answer is pretty simple - you don't really do that, you just put the first line down and follow your gut most of the time xD

But if you want to draw something specific - you either (as deviant mentioned earlier) use a reference, either can use such a thing as deconstruction where you take your idea and break it into simplest 3d shapes (cube, sphere, cylinders)

For example you can imagine head and body as cubes and ask yourself questions like "what side of the cube I'll see in that pose", "does cube-head overlaps with the body-cube" and such, while connecting them with one line to check on dynamics

If you're struggling with overall image - try to write your idea down before sketching becuase it's likely faster for you rn, something like "that pony sits on bench and little dog barks at her which scared her and made drop her icecream on the ground, there's a park visible behind her with two buildings visible behind the park and one has massive banner there" might help you