Cristall studied engraving at the Royal Academy Schools in London, but his artistic career did not really begin until a legacy he received on his parents' deaths allowed him to go to North Wales in 1802. Here he sketched alongside teh Varley brothers, John and Cornelius, and these connections enabled him to become a founding member of the first Watercolour Society. In 1808, he had a major success with a series of pictures of the Kent coast. He moved to Ross-on-Wye in 1822 and spent eighteen years working and exhibiting there before returning to London. Cristall's work remained largely disregarded for a hundred years until art historians identified him as an innovative figure of central importance in watercolour history.