This was painted from the opening scenes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker, paused onscreen and painted with a flat half-inch brush with raw umber watercolour. I made an initial sketch in pencil to get the main proportions. It was a good job I did, because after drawing the basic outlines of the top corner of the room I drew the figures way too big, out of proportion to the rest of the scene. Maybe this is a Betty Edwards left brain problem: I think the figures have more importance so draw them larger than the background. I had to make a conscious effort to draw small heads! But once I did, something clicked and they looked correct relative to the frame of the door.

Using one brush and one colour was surprisingly liberating, leaving me free to concentrate on shapes of light and dark.