An empty room is a story waiting to happen, and you are the author. ~ Charlotte Moss ~

The sweet. beloved boy is now a 6’ 3” tall +man.  That soft little fat-cheeked face is angular and has stubble.  He achieved a distinction in his M.A. degree, flew the coop in July for a house-share with good friends, has just exchanged his sound engineering job for a dream lecturing position in London and he’s happy. We could not be more proud…and relieved!

There’s less laundry and the food bill has been cut by more than half but god I miss him breezing through the front door and so long to receive one of his wonderful bear hugs. 

Covid means we only “see” each other during our weekly online chat.  He’ll be spending his first Christmas day away from home with the family of a nearby school friend, so we’ll get to see him briefly, wearing our masks,  each in a corner of our sitting room.  I’ll throw one of those see-through dust sheets over him so that I can have one of his longed for hugs, plus it will make him laugh.

His room is freakishly immaculate, screamingly silent and vastly empty!  Not wanting to make it unrecognisable, (I can’t bring myself to call it our spare room) I had fun creating this watercolour to break up the now offensively naked walls.

Using beech leaves, I had my first go at mono-printing, which, if you’re interested, doesn’t really work with watery watercolour paints, so I also block-printed and then drew over the top using “pens” I’d fashioned out of beech twigs.  They worked really well, although as you can see, the ink did run sometimes off too quickly, but I fixed that by wiping the point on the side of the ink bottle.

Is it possible to have too much gold paint?  Yes, I went a smidgen too far, but think I got away with it.

I’ve ordered this inexpensive frame – and yes, the colour theme of the room is mainly blue…for boys!