Spending her childhood summers on an isolated beach house retreat, Cynthia Blair found her passion in drawing and painting, with a fascination for animals, people, and literary fantasy. Upon graduating RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) in Illustration, she experimented and translated her visions in different media, from serigraphs to large scale interior nightclub murals to computer graphics and web design.

     Today, she uses Photoshop to develop and refine painting concepts, often compositing and manipulating images to bring a heightened sense of reality to her subjects. These are used as references for the final painting. Pastel remains her favorite medium, for its pure, luminous color and subtle color variations and texture only achieved through layering.

     She has won many awards as a Pastel artist, been published in several prominent art magazines, and is a signature member of the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod and the Connecticut Pastel Society.

"Through my paintings I wish to express something more, the intangible center which transcends the ordinary and illuminates the mythic essence, if you will, which exists within us, unchanged since we were children. When we were children, we absorbed the beauty of all around us, touched with a glow of magic conjured by our imaginations. I wish to bring the viewer back to that time, to experience things, maybe not as they were, but as we wish to remember them."

Cynthia Blair's pastel paintings can be seen at the Schock Gallery and at: