Skelton began his career as a graphic designer, which he studied at Glasgow School of Art. His art teacher at school had greatly encouraged his creativity, and Skelton continued to paint, putting work into a few galleries, until a few years ago demand for his paintings grew so that he could concentrate on it full time. Skelton grew up in the industrial town of Kirkintilloch, and his memories of going to meet his father after school at the foundry where he worked, and watching the furnace workers, fill his paintings. His subjects are nostalgic evocations of Scotland's industrial past: working class heroes, boxers, a couple on a park bench, a group of men in dark overcoats, watching a football game played on waste ground. The stark simplicity of Skelton's figures, painted on rough hessian, belie a rich heritage. These are the kids playing on the street so familiar from the paintings of Joan Eardley or the photographs of Oscar Marzaroli. The influence of the great industrial naïve painter J.S Lowry is clear. His paintings are suffused with the dark, low light of Scotland in winter, with the factory roof on the horizon line