Lois DeWitt Gallery

I hold a Masters Degree in Fine Art from Pratt Institute, NYC. I have worked in many art areas and with a wide variety of materials, including oil paint, acrylic paint, collage, mixed media, conte crayon, oil pastels, water color and ceramics. Over the past thirty years I have developed, not only my own personal mastery of many art skills and techniques, but have a continuing research and development in many of those areas.

I have been teaching private art classes for over thirty years, as well in private schools, community colleges and in my studio.

Several years ago, some of my students suggested that I take my classes beyond my studio and workshop and put them online. So I began this website--Free Online Art Classes.com.

I have put online many of the art instruction lessons I have taught: Acrylic Painting, Oil Painting, Drawing, Collage, Oil Pastels, Conte Crayon, Printmaking and Discovering The Artist Within You and my Artful Life Program. All are information-rich, step by step, courses with enjoyable and rewarding lessons that will teach you the basic skills and techniques and, in my acrylic painting and oil painting lessons, I offer intermediate and advanced lessons.I have created over sixty art demonstration videos to enrich the lessons.

My students frequently tell me that my classes are challenging. I reply that it is important to spend the time to master the skills and techniques as well as having a personal sincerity towards their development.

I believe this is true with learning anything. Your success is what you want to make it. Whether you choose to "dip a toe" into the stream of creativity or swim in the rising tide of your artistic abilities, I am here for you, to help you develop towards whatever goal you have in art instruction.

If you live in the Wilmington, NC area, you can take my art classes.

Just click here for more information on my Wilmington, NC classes.

My Oil Paintings

I am in the process of creating lessons for "Paint From A Photo," so that they will soon be available online.


I took several photographs of the clouds at sunset, watching the light and the shapes of the clouds change.


This painting was done from a photograph I took outside my back door and looking in to the interior of the house.It was almost dark, a chilly November night, and the warm yellow light in the living room looked so inviting and cozy.It wasn't until I had spent several days on this painting that I noticed the shape of my dog, Charley, barely visible in the shadows in the bottom of the photo.I emphasized his shape and found it gave the quiet interior scene a bit of movement.

I also noticed that the lights on the left side in the kitchen were reflected in the panes of the back door.


Street lamps turn on automatically when it gets dark and as the sun rises, slowly they go off.

I took a picture of the street lamps in early morning, just as the sky was going from pink to light blue. There were still long dark shadows around the houses and the lights were bathed in the shadow so they had not turned off yet.

I loved the contrast between the lightening sky and the deep yellow street lights against the dark shapes of the houses and the darker woods behind the houses.


When I took a photograph of the roofs next door, it was so dark that I didn't think I would get any images, but I did!

The moon was pale yellow and in the painting I made it larger, moved it over to the right to balance the shapes of the roofs. I went through several different paintings of colors for the sky, one teal blue, one purple and one violet. Finally, this blue worked!

The base of the house went through some changes, too. The first color was too dark and the house shapes sank and anchored the whole composition to the bottom of the painting. The next couple colors: yellow and then light green, just weren't right with the rest of the colors in the painting.

Finally, the dark red was perfect! It was just the right darkness but lifted the house shapes up and balanced them nicely against the misty, darkening sky.


I love the play of light on common objects. As a lighting specialist, the constant movement of light fascinates me.One morning, as the sun came in through the kitchen window, a water pitcher I had filled glowed with the morning light.

I photographed it right away and I'm glad I did, because an instant later the whole effect was gone!


Being a black Standard poodle, Charley is often a very expressive silhouette.

Here I captured him with my camera as he lay in a patch of sunlight coming in through the front door. Again, a moment later, that light had vanished. I'm glad I had my camera ready to snap the picture when I could.

I made some changes from the photo as I painted. This often happens. I simplified the shadows, made the colors of the door and the wall richer and made Charley a nice rich blue to contrast with his surroundings.


My daughter emailed a lovely picture of herself and one of the cats.

Light coming in through the door behind was pale and when I painted the scene I made the light much stronger so that it cast a angular pattern on the floor.

I took out some things in the photo to make the composition simple and stronger, with big areas of light and shadow gradations in the wall behind her.


Here is my painting of my daughter, Samantha. What an incredible experience! I worked from a photograph, but changed a lot of the compositional elements and the lighting.I wanted to capture (again) that magic moment when, another year in a dear life brings hope and challenge. It is a comfortable scene, with cushions and flowers and the light flows from the right and illuminates the scene.. Light is hope and the candle, with its little flame, is also hope, burning bright in a young life.


The next painting I did was really successful for me. I have learned some good painting skills regarding how to depict light and shadow, mixing colors and allowing myself to change the exact depiction of a photo when so inspired! You can do this also, if you are so inspired. Go to the Basic Oil Painting Lessons and begin. It is there for you and totally free....


Here's my latest painting. I needed to do more with my subject matter than using just a single photo. I decided that muliple images might be nice to try to paint. I made many collages and this one of a photo of Charley framed in an environment of found papers from various magazine was the one I chose. For the whole process, please view my video.

See my video"A Collage That May Become A Painting"

Then I did an oil painting of that collage. It was a great experience! It was like painting several little paintings in one painting! I like the idea that multiple images could make one rather magical environment!

See my video "Painting Using A Collage As Subject Matter"

Interested in learning more about my artwork? Email me!