The process of painting

I am a morning person, that’s to say, I am nicely productive around 7 and 8 am. I need quietness and stillness. I prefer to work alone because I am easily distracted. Looking out of the window, staring at nothing but over-thinking a lot, there goes a flow of thoughts through my mind. I need this musing to filter and process my feelings and thoughts. Meanwhile trying to connect what moves me. As this goes very fast I don’t have the time to keep up with my stream of consciousness, I just listen to my intuition and start painting, just putting some lines on the paper and express the unspoken word, in which so many things are hidden. Or express things I can not say in words simply because I don’t have enough words.
I sometimes feel a little disappointed and frustrated that I just can’t express all these thoughts at the same time, because I know most of them will disappear before I even have the time to register or write them down. So I am surrounded with many pieces of paper I work on at the same time, they are on my desk or at the floor. That’s maybe why I work on my lap, there is just no space left to work on my table.
I prefer working in watercolors, I love the transparency and the fluidity of the material.
As as I work with lots of water with my watercolors it needs some time to dry so I could never work in a journal. The papers wouldn’t lay flat and the paint would drip. So working on all these papers, sometimes only scraps, it’s a quick process of painting ideas out. At that moment it is a rough sketch and it’s a spontaneous action. I never work longer than an hour, then I have to take a step back, look at my sketches, experience what I’ve created and give them some rest. I might work on them the same day but it sometimes takes days or weeks before I finish them. It always take 2 painting sessions before I call them done.
Although I love to work loosely, it is a controlled looseness. I don’t have a plan, while working I manipulate the paint in the direction I want. No deepening in detail, just expressions and feelings translated into shapes and colors. Finding beauty in the unexpected. I don’t need a perfect image, it’s just my perception and observation which results in a painting that represent the way I see and feel the life all around me.