Ball began exhibiting in 1877 when a small etching was accepted for a Royal Academy exhibition, and with this impetus he decided to quit his job and become a full-time artist. He gained his first substantive notice when James Abbott McNeill Whistler admired a series of etchings of the Thames River that he did in 1881–82. He followed these up with two more etching series, one focused on the Isis River and the other on the town of Stratford-on-Avon. In 1900, one of his etchings was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Exhibition.