Meet Our Instructors

Patrick Dwyer is a local artist and teacher who served in the Marines and worked as a technical illustrator during his civilian career.

He now prefers painting in acrylics and loves to capture people and wildlife in their natural settings.

He loves teaching and is beloved among his students at Pine Island Art.

Patty is a well-known and recognized acrylic and oil artist and teacher. She has taught at Pine Island Art Association since 2011 and at Cape Coral Art League for many years.

Patty is an internationally collected artist and has sold paintings to owners in Germany, London, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Portugal and locations across the United States.

She is adept at working with both beginners and advanced artists.

Deb Zweitsch has worked as an artist all her life. Her work has led her down many paths including exhibiting, teaching, jurying and curating exhibitions.

Deb received a BA in Art Therapy, worked in advertising, then went to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for a masters’ level emersion of all artistic disciplines, including painting, printmaking, sculpture and drawing. This experience culminated in winning the prestigious “Travel Scholarship: a three month tour of the art in Europe” – all expenses paid.

Returning from Europe, Deb pursued exhibiting both her fine art and fine craft work (Zwear scarves), along with teaching, running workshops for all ages and working through the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts.

In 2006 she moved to Pine Island, FL, where she continued exhibiting and drawing inspiration from the beauty surrounding her. This February, she and another artist exhibited sculpture, paintings, silk art and fashion in an exhibit entitled “We Contain Multitudes.” The exhibit was a culmination of the three years of working both individually and together on our art.

For over 30yrs, Betty has taught classes at PIAA. Her classes are quiet as she rotates around the classroom, giving each student a mini private lesson, sharing her vast knowledge of colors, structure, and composition to help improve your work. There is no demonstration painting at the beginning of class. Bring to class whatever you are working on, be it watercolor, oil, pastels or acrylics, and Betty will focus on improving your work with her hands on (or off) way of teaching. Her classes fill up quickly so register early to assure your spot.

Lisa Burke is a self-taught watercolor artist. She started out taking local watercolor classes at PIAA and worked her way up to becoming an instructor. She loves creating whimsical paintings with her watercolors. She believes as long as you learn the basic techniques with watercolors, you'll be able to create wonderful works of art. Her theory is "follow the rules, then break the rules."