Artist Cynthia Amaral shows some of her faux mosaic paintings on display at the St. Cloud Arts Studio, located on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown St. Cloud.

Line Cindie Amaral up next to all of her artwork — the stained-glass paintings, the mosaic paintings, the remade vintage jewelry — and you would swear she’s poured a good 30 years of her life into it.

Fact is, the St. Cloud mother of three has really been creating all of these extremely professional art pieces for only the past few years.

And she is quickly getting recognized for it, as the artist has sold practically all of her 160 paintings. She lights up when she talks about where all those works are now.

Amaral has been a volunteer at the St. Cloud Arts Studio since last April, teaching classes once a week on mosaic art, with students — both young and old — able to take their creations home at the end of the class. The class costs $35 per person for a four-hour session.

She gives them the basics of making mosaic art pieces, with Masonite as a canvas and showing them how to cut glass pieces and grout their work. Her own art pieces are amazing tricks for the eyes, as all look convincingly like small pieces of tiles mapped into very recognizable art — the woman in her hat, the vase, the bridge at night. But no tiles were used to create these, only the artist’s perception of what they would look like strictly as true mosaic pieces. It takes her an average of 20-25 hours to create one of these pieces.

She is so “into” this type of artwork that she said she sees almost everything as a mosaic.

But even long before Amaral took to the mosaics, she knew there was an artistic spirit in her.

“I’ve always been very creative,” she said. “I was always looking for things to break, breakdown and rebuild.”

She surprised her husband Jim — to say the least — many times by tearing down closets in their home while he was working at his construction job. Then came the kitchen cabinets and even some recessed lighting areas — all for the purpose of rebuilding them in a more satisfying way to her.

But the surprises have stopped and she has settled down to produce her artwork in her home studio. Some of those pieces now hang in the art studio on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The New England native has lived in Osceola County for the past 28 years, but moved to St. Cloud only five years ago. She headed to Florida when she realized she didn’t want to raise her children in the colder climate.

“It was a simpler life here, not harsh like in New England,” she said. “It’s very family oriented here.”

Until she made the St. Cloud move five years ago, Amaral had spent 12 years working for the county’s school board. Then she realized that job wasn’t going to do any more.

“I just wanted to do something different, so I started a little painting, but I didn’t pursue it.

A short time later, her brother-in-law introduced her to the wonderful world of mosaic painting and her long line of art pieces began.

The feeling of creating a mosaic artpiece, Amaral said, is incredible.

“You just go into your own world and it’s a place nobody else can enter,” she said. “It’s just such a satisfaction … I just love it.”

Beyond working for herself so others can enjoy the artwork, Amaral tries to encourage other new artists to share their gift.

“I love yard sales, and if I find an artist at one I send them here (to the studio) because early on when I was looking for an outlet, I couldn’t find one. This place is perfect,” she said. “I love people. I love working with them and helping them selling their work.”