In 1976 I left my full-time commercial art job and moved to Paris for the New York Studio School summer session painting classes taught by Leland Bell and Elaine deKooning. My wife and I sublet an apartment on the rue de Longchamps in Passy near the Trocadero, and I spent every weekday painting models in the studio or landscapes at various sites around Paris or visiting the many art museums with our instructors. It was a great experience and I think I learned more that summer than I had in four years of art school a decade earlier. When the session was over we planned to spend six weeks touring Europe by train. I wanted to make more art, but I couldn't see myself lugging my bulky oil painting gear on and off trains, so I sent all that stuff home by boat mail. Instead I bought a small portfolio with a shoulder strap and filled it with a box of Pelikan dry pan watercolors, a pad of watercolor paper, two small cups to put water in, and a green plastic French detergent bottle to carry a supply of water. Thus began my "Traveler's Sketchbook" series of small watercolors and drawings.
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| Rathaus in Hamburg, 9 x 12 inch watercolor by George C. Clark SOLD |
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| My green French detergent bottle |
I have worn out several portfolios and many boxes of watercolor paints, but I am still using that same green detergent bottle.
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