Maritime Art from Naval Broadsides
Welcome to Naval Broadsides, the Internet home of the marine paintings by Royal Navy ship artist Ross Watton, where the highest quality A2 size, signed prints are available for purchase.
Ross began painting ships during his early teens and quickly realized it was something he aspired to do for a living. Consequently, on leaving school, instead of attending Art College, he joined the Royal Navy. This perhaps unorthodox step to progress his ambition of becoming a professional marine artist resulted from a belief that you can only paint what you truly know. To this end, he spent much of his free time in the service drawing ships from life, at the various naval dockyards. Unfortunately, despite receiving the occasional commission to paint a ship from Commanding Officers, he was more in demand drawing portraits of his fellow shipmates.
Gradually realizing his objective would never be achieved from within the Royal Navy, he left to attend Art College, where his naval ship knowledge was soon put to use, illustrating a large cutaway of HMS BELFAST, moored in the Pool of London. This unpaid work, which took three years, has been displayed on board since 1985 and resulted in his writing and illustrating the first of his four 'Anatomy of the Ship' volumes.
A diligent, if not fanatical, researcher of his subject, Ross endeavours to portray ships accurately and individually. This attention to each vessel's specific detail has made his work much admired by those that live and work on them, both past and present. He is not however, a slave to the photograph and produces paintings, which he hopes convey life and drama, his warships being anything but dull and grey!
His maritime paintings have graced the covers of many nautical books, both fiction and non-fiction. He has also illustrated numerous other publications, on a surprisingly wide range of subjects and likewise, designed hundreds of postage stamps for the British Crown Colonies, both former and extant.
In recent years, Ross has been responsible for the ship cutaway illustrations in the Navy News. He has received official commissions to portray Royal Naval warships and these are painted in oils on canvas. Compositions are normally developed from simple 3D models he builds on the computer, believing there is little point or skill in copying a photograph. His prints are privately collected in many countries.Maritime Paintings - Latest - click for details
HMS Daring and USS Carl Vinson