Adam Boulton

"Because we are looking out from ourselves most of us don't know what we really look like, let alone what impression we make - a portrait is the best way to find out and Stella has an artist's eye and professional insight when it comes to people from the media world like me." - Adam Boulton on being portrayed.

Adam Boulton is the Editor-at-Large at Sky News and is a pioneer of live analysis.  I worked with him when I headed up the channel’s publicity, memorably when he hosted Sky News’ historic televised debate between the three party leaders ahead of the 2010 general election.  Later that same year I left Sky News to retrain as a portrait artist, following five years of preparatory part time study at The Heatherley School of Fine Art

Adam was in the middle of a house move when he, characteristically, agreed to give generously of his time and sit for me.  The condition was that it would have to be at his home.  Although I readily agreed to it, I had imagined painting him in his familiar stomping ground of his office in Sky News Westminster, handy for filming in both Downing Street and College Green, and the Houses of Parliament, so I found it difficult to connect him to his work out of these surroundings. 

After much thought, I decided to draw rather than paint him, in black and white and just head and shoulders on an acrylic paper that had a tooth and gave the impression of newsprint.  I felt it summed up much more the tough, former Sky News ex Political Editor with a knack of drawing out interviewees by allowing them to speak.

Adam Boulton, Editor-at-large Sky News pencil on paper portrait by Stella Tooth.