I love hearing this story about your horse drawing as a 4 year old! Copying can be a great exercise for sure but you're right, at some point we have to move past it in order to actually be creating. I have very sweet memories of my high school life drawing class listening to classical music and feeling the lines rather than trying to realistically draw the model. I think you do an exemplary job of mingling what you see and feel and it's one of the reasons your drawings/paintings/designs are so compelling! (you also have an experienced eye ;-)))