Cindy grew up in the beautiful Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, on a mountain top surrounded many mornings by valley fog. The summer skies were blue, the autumn a palette of vibrant color, the winters ice-cold blue and white, the springs full of life, hope and flowers. Her younger years were spent in a living landscape painting. The love of light and landscapes, whether east coast, west coast or around the globe, comes from a lifetime passion for nature and its moods.Her professional artistic career began with a BFA degree in Graphic Arts from Auburn University. She subsequently moved on to illustrating and writing children's books professionally for Random House, Viking/Penguin, Alfred A. Knopf, and other major publishers in New York City for 20 years. Her books can still be found on Amazon.com under author Cindy Wheeler.In 2001, she moved to Marin County in California and began to learn how to translate her artistic background into her newest passion, landscape painting. She fell in love with the golden hills at sunset and the dramatic coastline, Point Reyes, Drake's Bay, Mt. Tamalpais, Bolinas Lagoon, Monterey, San Juan Bautista Valley, the topics for many of her paintings.In October 2006 she left for South Africa to work as a volunteer with a Cheetah Conservation group, called Cheetah Outreach www.cheetah.co.za/. She reluctantly returned to the USA after 6 months in love with cheetahs and Africa. After spending a summer in the mountains of North Carolina, working at a girls' summer camp, teaching conservation and nature, she returned to California. She is now living in San Juan Bautista, CA, just north of beautiful Monterey, helping to care for 5 aging leopards - 2 snow leopards and 3 clouded leopards. She spends her mornings feeding leopards, and her afternoons working as a remote graphic designer for a company in Mill Valley, CA.