Born in 1961, Andrew S. Walton has worked for 25 years as a successful commercial artist after graduating from Kingston
University in the United Kingdom. During that time, he worked for all of the major publishing and advertising agencies throughout the United Kingdom.
After a life changing transatlantic crossing, he has concentrated on painting marine subjects, following his life long passions for painting and sailing. Having learned to sail with his father from the age of two, he has continued to sail in all sorts of classes of yachts. He has restored a vintage 1910 gaff racing boat which he sails around his home waters in Cornwall, England.
His paintings have been shown at the prestigious Royal Society of Marine Artists Exhibition in London, and for the past seven years, at the International Show at Mystic Seaport, winning an Award of Excellence in the 2007 Exhibition. While he mainly paints yachting subjects, his ability to draw the figure allows him to add the drama of sailors in action to his compositions, giving his paintings a real “you are there” feeling.
His knowledge of sailing in the state-of-the-art racers, as well as old boats, enables him to understand the movement of the boats through the water and be accurate with the deck action.
The paintings are painstakingly put together using found reference or drawings and combined with posed models and sketches of skies and seas that he collects all the time. As important as accurate detail is the accurate portrayal of light on the sea in its myriad of forms. This can only be achieved by constant observation, so if Andrew doesn’t answer his phone, you can bet he will probably be out sailing somewhere!
