C.D. Clarke travels the world hunting, fishing, and painting. He carries his art supplies on his back, so that he can paint on location. Born and raised in Rochester, NY, Clarke received his BFA in painting and illustration from Syracuse University in 1981.
​
Clarke has dedicated much of his work to his lifelong passion for the outdoors (particularly angling and hunting). Boats, leaky waders, fishing rods, wet wool, bird dogs, decoys, and shotguns are integral parts of Clarke’s life. He paints them with a sportsman’s understanding.

Clarke prefers to work from life whenever possible. Much of his work is created on location, often with the artist standing knee-deep in a salmon river or on a bonefish flat, bobbing along in a skiff. His immersion in the subject results in a spontaneous composition.
​
Working from watercolor sketches and photographs of the sportsmen and their equipment, Clarke accurately depicts the sporting scene in oil paintings and larger watercolors completed in the studio under more controlled conditions. The boats, planes, dogs, rods and guns, as well as the anglers and hunters and the landscape that they inhabit, are all true to life.