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Meet Our Instructors

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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.

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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 Zwetsch is a lifelong artist with a diverse career in exhibiting, teaching, and curating. She holds a BA in Art Therapy and advanced her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she mastered painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Her excellence earned her a prestigious all-expenses-paid Travel Scholarship to study art across Europe. She was a member and juror in the PA Council on the Arts, and led many corporate and institutional workshops.

Moving to Pine Island in 2006, she has focused her work on "Zwear" scarves, painting and teaching Her recent e exhibition, “We Contain Multitudes,” at the Alliance for the Arts, showcased three years of dedicated work in sculpture, silk art, and fashion.

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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.
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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."
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