[2] A native of Andover, Massachusetts, Russell was one of twelve children; her younger sister, Sara Peters Grozelier, also became a miniaturist.

The details of Clarissa's early education are not known, but it has been suggested that she studied at the Franklin Academy, the first incorporated school in Massachusetts to admit women and the institution attended by her sister Emily from 1836 to 1838.

[5] She is known to have been in that town in 1831, and it is thought that she may have received some instruction in watercolor painting from Jonathan Fisher, a local polymath and graduate of Harvard University.

[8] Her style, which is reminiscent of that of her New England contemporaries such as William Matthew Prior,[7] has been called by one writer "highly finished though somewhat defective in drawing";[8] another has spoken of her "penchant for realism in combination with decorative fabric".

An album of watercolors of flowers and plants, likely her earliest surviving work, is currently owned by the North Andover Historical Society.