Cynthia Hamilton

Cynthia Hamilton has a BS in Education from Eastern Illinois University, as well as two BFA's (Fashion Illustration and Illustration) from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA. She was a computer graphics animator and art director, working on PC and video games in the early days of game development.

After completing some 10 years in the computer game industry, working on many of the original versions of Electronic Arts' most popular sports games, she has returned to the more traditional genre of pastel, and more recently, oil painting.

An outdoor enthusiast awed by the incredible beauty of the California landscape, she has found that Plein Air painting combines her two passions of the outdoors and painting.

Dedicated to continued study, Cynthia has studied with many outstanding contemporary painters and has traveled extensively throughout the United States. Her paintings represent locations such as Santa Fe, Taos, Malibu, Maine, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Napa, Carmel, Connecticut, Florida, Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras, as well as numerous locations in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2006, she painted in Tuscany Italy, and hopes to return to the Amalfi coast in 2008.

Portraiture has always been a great love of Cynthia's, and her work has been exhibited in various competitions throughout the United States, and is held privately in many homes across the country. She has been juried into the "Best and Brightest" competition in Scottsdale for 4 years, has won awards competing in the Pastel Society of the West Coast, and recently won first place for Small Works at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco.

Currently, she is a member of Oil Painters of America, Laguna Plein Air Painters, California Art Club and the American Impressionist Society.

Last year, she competed in 3 juried competitions, and had a solo exhibit in Illinois. Her work has been shown locally in Portola Valley, Santa Fe and in the California Art Club's exhibition of National Parks in Pasadena, Laguna Plein Air Painters shows, Academy of Art university Faculty/Alumni Exhibition, and the Coos Bay Maritime Competition. She has also shown in MarinScapes, and she has been selected to show at Plein Air Easton, in Maryland in July.

Cynthia and her husband and daughter live in Portola Valley, CA.