Nick Botting’s painting of the sea of fans

HE paints what he wants, he paints what he wants, he’s got a blank canvas, he paints what he wants!

Artist Nick Botting became an unlikely Arsenal parade viral sensation while painting fans from a rooftop at the Angel.

There have been hundreds of thousands of likes and shares on Instagram and TikTok of a film of him hoisting his painting trophy-lift style above the crowd.

Nick Botting holding his painting up for the crowd

Mr Botting – whose huge triptych of fans going up Wembley way to the first FA Cup in the new stadium hangs in the FA headquarters – said: “I was able to paint the Arsenal parade from a roof terrace overlooking Islington Green and perhaps because I was so visible to the crowd they kept chanting for me to show them the paintings I was doing. I eventually held a painting up as if it were a trophy.

“Since then I have been contacted by huge numbers of people asking either to buy the paintings or to have a print made.”

Mr Botting has had many exhibitions of his work in prestigious galleries over the years.

He added: “To me that was the point of it all. It was the niceness of the whole thing. It was an immense mass of people, all utterly charming and calm. No pushing and shoving and trying to get in front. It was like, the whole thing was one big happy red animal.”