In the cool, pre-dawn hours of a late-October morning, migrant workers rush through a Sonoma County vineyard in Northern California’s famed wine country. Each man picks ripe clusters of Chardonnay grapes at an almost blurring speed, dropping them into a bin that, once filled, he carries to the foreman to be weighed and recorded.

Lying on the earth between the rows of vines, Craig Nelson trains his Canon camera on the action. He snaps images at a pace rivaling that of his subject, now rolling onto his back, now crouching, then back on his stomach as he aims to capture every possible angle and movement. In less than three hours, before the sun has fully risen, he’ll have filled as many as eight 36-exposure rolls of color film.

Later, back in his 500 square foot studio above his home in nearby Santa Rosa, Nelson sifts through his photos for images that strike an aesthetic chord. He might combine elements of several different ones to make a small thumbnail sketch, which he then clips to the reference pictures. As many as 10 different compositions may emerge from his morning reconnaissance. One by one, he’ll transfer each composition onto a generously sized canvas using charcoal or pastel, then begin applying oils in richly textured brushwork to make a scene that was first observed in life come to vivid new life.

Thus is born a painting such as CHARDONNAY HARVEST TIME (top), a 3-by-4-foot landscape-with-figures that not only captures the rural allure of California wine but also pays tribute to some of the unsung people who make it happen. "There’s a romantic dignity to what they do," proposes Nelson. "There is not a typical painting of guys in tuxes pouring wine into glasses, with roses on the table."

It is typical, however, of an artist who "gravitates toward subjects that, hopefully, I haven’t seen other people paint." His commitment to originality has evolved from a lifelong love and pursuit of art.

Born in 1947 in the town of Cupertino, CA, then mostly agricultural and now the heart of the techno-driven Silicon Valley, Nelson showed an early interest in art at Doyle Elementary School. "Back in the second grade," he remembers, "I’d impress my friends with drawings of Disney characters." His parents encouraged his budding talent. So did his Aunt Lois, who worked for Crown Zellerbach, the West Coast’s largest paper company at the time. Says Nelson, "Every year for Christmas, she’d give me this big box of paper that would get me through the whole year."

By the time he’d matriculated to Hyde Junior High, he had switched from paper to wearable art. "Monsters in cars with big gear-shift knobs dawn sweatshirts were very big back then," Nelson recalled with a laugh. Adding that his main inspirations at the time were the cartoonists of Mad magazine. That zany bent continued into his years at Cupertino High, though Nelson discovered in his junior year that he was also adept at drawing realistic pastel graduation portraits, a part-time business he conducted at $15 per commission. "I thought I’d made it," he says, adding that he supplemented his income by painting portraits of the Beatles on the backs of sweatshirts sold to tourists on the boardwalk in nearby Santa Cruz. He continued to develop his skills at Foothill Junior College, while saving money to apply to the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Nelson entered the Art Center at 19. "I immersed myself in the program, staying up without sleep about three nights a week working on projects," he remembers. "My goal was to be the best in the class. There’s no fun in trying to be second best."

Four teachers there particularly influenced him. From painting instructor Donald "Putt" Putman, he gained brush technique, a passion for color, and a joy in painting. "Putt made magic happen with a paint brush," Nelson marvels, his voice still filled with awe 38 years later. "He was a master colorist, and we just loved to watch this guy demonstrate."

Drawing lecturer Midge Quinell, now a good friend, was a fair but unrelenting guide. "She taught me not to be satisfied," says Nelson, "because I could always do better."

With Joseph Henninger, Nelson studied figure painting and advanced illustration. Just as importantly, he absorbed Henninger’s tales of his studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and his travels in Morocco painting nomad tribes. The teacher’s skills and stories imbued in Nelson’s a sense of "taking my abilities and putting them together in a meaningful picture with a strong composition."

Reynold Brown taught "head painting" with live models, an essential class for the once-and-future portraitist. "He was frightening, a really hard taskmaster," Nelson remembers. "I took his class four times, and the last time he allowed me to move from gouache to oils. It was the only A-plus I’ve ever received."

Nelson realized another, more fundamental truth from his teachers: "You cannot learn anything in 15 weeks. You get a taste of it, and you go back and do it again and again, and each time you make these incremental steps."

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