What Do Artists Do All Day? BBC Four, review Jack Vettriano is arguably the UK's most popular artist - though much more so among the general public than art critics. (BBC Four) followed him in the course of creating a painting, and even for those who don't like his work it was worth watching. Vettriano, as he said, appeals to "a kind of nostalgia" for Fifties noirish intrigue. He was born in Fife in 1951 to a poor mining family. For him "nylons, stilettos and make-up" represented American glamour in Austerity Britain. Self-taught Vettriano has a particular method. Painting with life models makes him nervous so he sets up photo-shoots before sketching and painting from the resulting prints. In the work we saw him creating his subject was a woman leaning against a classic car waiting for her lover. We watched him struggle with his first effort; dissatisfied he wiped his canvas clean. Vettriano is the Celine Dion of the art world: critically panned but commercially popular. All the aspects of his work that put off connoisseurs - romantic escapism, simple execution, the endless ladies in stockings and high heels - are what appeal to the millions who buy his reproductions. His methods have led some to accuse him of not even being an artist - more a paint-by-numbers workman. That is unfair. The Singing Butler, his most famous work, has a skilful figurative balance and his work undeniably has atmosphere. The programme-makers tried, I think, to make fun of him a bit with the soundtrack (playing Patsy Cline's Crazy when we saw him under pressure) but Vettriano's honesty was endearing. After going to a Francis Bacon exhibition he went through a crisis. I started to think that my art didn't stand up. I felt like a sham. He recovered when he reassured himself that Bacon did one thing and he another. Trying a second time with his woman leaning against a car, the results were more satisfactory. "Quite a sexy little number," he said proudly.