NICK BOTTING

The popular British landscape artist shares his expert tips for mixing colours, composing with figures, and bringing a real sense of depth to a scene

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Born in 1963, Nick Botting studied History of Art at the University of Kent before taking up landscape and portrait painting. In 1996, he was one of art critic Brian Sewell’s invited artists at the Discerning Eye exhibition and he was commissioned by the MCC to paint the England cricket team’s Test series in Pakistan in 2001.

As well as staging exhibitions as far afield as Australia and South Africa, Nick has exhibited regularly at London’s Portland Gallery since 2003. His next exhibition there runs from 12-22 October.

PAINTING ON LOCATION

Most of my painting is done on location. I want to respond to the world – and you do that by being part of it. I then take the canvases back to my studio and look at them as “paintings”. I’ll start looking at them upside down or in mirrors to check the composition, I sometimes book models – if you are painting a bar or restaurant, people are coming and going, and while you might have an idea for a pose, you don’t have a chance to paint it properly. Editing in the studio is a tricky one though: if you over-focus in one area of the painting, the balance is thrown.

Choosing a location to paint is interesting. When I see a subject that is compositionally wrong, it’s surprising how those paintings often turn out to be the best ones, because rather than avoiding something that is awkward, you resolve a problem by addressing it. With