Christy Ross’s passion for painting is as vibrant as the colors she paints with. Teaching others to paint comes in a close second on the passion scale. Christy packs her schedule full with teaching young and old to paint, whether in a classroom, a home, or a neighborhood coffee shop.
Christy, a San Diego native and Clairemont resident since 2010, has left her artistic mark on the community, quite literally, by painting one of the utility boxes you see scattered across Clairemont. She also offers private and group painting lessons, teaches paint and sip classes throughout San Diego, and creates commissioned artwork. Besides that, Christy teaches art two days a week at a K-8 school in Normal Heights and once a month at the Lemon Grove Library.
Is there room for more? You bet. Despite her jam-packed schedule, Christy says there’s always room for more because she simply loves to paint. It’s been that way for as long as she can remember.
From Crayolas to College: A Path of Art
“I’ve always done art,” Christy said. “I can remember coloring when I was six years old before church and my parents saying it was time to go, and I didn’t want to go.”
Christy’s love for painting continued to blossom from childhood into her teenage years, but she hadn’t given any thought to pursuing art as part of her higher education. That is, until her teacher told her she should apply to art school. As a child of academically-focused parents, Christy was surprised when they encouraged her decision to chase her dream of becoming an artist.
The one compromise? When she got accepted into UCLA for both art and design and had to choose only one, she chose design because of her father, a US Naval Academy and Harvard Business School alumnus.
“My dad told me, ‘Christy, you should pick design because you’ll be more employable. He wasn’t wrong,” Christy confirmed.
Because of that decision, Christy never took on the stereotypical role of the starving artist. Instead, she worked successfully as a colorist in the movie industry for ten years. She helped transform black-and-white classic movies into colorful spectacles.
Eventually, modern technology took over, and the need for movie colorists all but faded away. So Christy pivoted to teaching art. She earned her teaching credential after she finished her undergraduate degree, so it was a smooth transition.
Teaching and Inspiring
Around the time of the COVID pandemic, Christy began teaching art to children at the Japanese Academy in Clairemont, and also online to students at her young son’s school. This lit the teaching fire in Christy, and she wanted even more people to learn to love the art of painting. She began posting her lessons online and landed more teaching gigs.
Christy held her first paint and sip event in her sister’s dining room in 2022. If you’re not familiar, a paint and sip event is when an artist teaches students to recreate a painting with step-by-step instructions while they sip on beverages. Paint and sips are meant to be welcoming to those without formal art training.
“I teach for a fourth-grade level, so it’s accessible to nearly anyone,” noted Christy. “I make it so it’s simple but fun. I just want people to be creative.”
Christy branched out from teaching private paint and sips to collaborating with local coffee shops, like the former Humble Bean Cafe and Clairemont Coffee Shop in Bay Park. Now, she has a consistent five or six businesses she collaborates with for paint and sip events throughout central San Diego.
While Christy’s favorite thing to paint is seascapes, she draws inspiration from many things. For her paint and sips, she rarely paints the same thing twice, instead choosing to collaborate with business owners to select the perfect piece for their guests to paint. Sometimes it’s a scene of the ocean, another time it might be an animal. Currently, Christy is leaning into the Taylor Swift craze and is working on a “Swiftie”-themed paint and sip event to be announced soon.
A friend recently asked Christy if she was concerned that paint and sips are just another fad. To which Christy replied, “People wanting to be creative and have some ‘me’ time is not a trend. That is a necessity. It’s hard to take time for ourselves, and some people think this is frivolous, but it’s not. It’s self-care.”
Bringing Art to the Community
Besides painting and teaching others, Christy’s other passion is the community. “I love this community. I love the people,” she said.
When she was commissioned to paint the utility box, Christy felt a great sense of pride about creating something beautiful for the community. She worked with the Clairemont Town Council, pitching different ideas, taking their feedback, and then blending her ideas with theirs into a cohesive work of art.
The utility box, which sits at Ingulf and Denver Streets, depicts a vibrant sunset and ocean scene, with a windsurfer, a dog, and a horse. “I would never have come up with the idea on my own, but it turned out really cool,” said Christy.
Unfortunately, the utility box was recently vandalized with gang tagging and paint. But Christy has every intention of restoring her art to its former state.
“It’s really hard not to take it personally because my name is on it, but I’m not going to let this go. I’m going to redo this,” she vowed.
Christy is even more excited about her next potential neighborhood project, which would involve teaching art to seniors in Clairemont. Things aren’t yet finalized, but if all goes as planned, Christy feels like this would be an excellent way for her to help build community.
“There are a lot of seniors with nothing to do or who are lonely, and art is a unifier that brings people together.
In a way, Christy’s life is a bit like how she describes her art. “It’s not refined. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t look like a photograph, and I don’t want it to. I want it to be loose and free.
To view Christy’s upcoming events in the Clairemont area, visit our events directory or Christy’s website.
