meet our instructors
Now Hiring! Have a talent for art? Are you a willing professional? GNAL is always looking for experienced instructors! Please submit a cover letter describing your interests with your resume to gnartleague@gmail.com. GNAL holds adult classes, young artist classes, summer art camp and specialty programs in addition to birthday parties all year round!
"Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit."
– John Steinbeck
(Instructors in alphabetical order)
Lori Crook
Alcohol Ink classes
Diane DeRogatis
Kids Create Summer Program
My name is Diane DeRogatis and I am a certified art educator. I am originally from New Jersey where I taught Elementary and High School art. Since moving to Pennsylvania I continue to teach and work independently as a freelance artist. The mediums I love working with are watercolors and acrylics. Being a landscape artist I am totally inspired by the beautiful lakes, mountains, hiking trails and farmland of PA.
Betz Green
All Media Drawing and Watercolor
When very young I would collect bits of nature while hiking in the countryside of Berks County, go home to set up a still life with the found objects, and then draw, draw, draw. This experience developed my perception and discipline. After attending youth classes at Kutztown University, receiving a scholarship to attend Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts and then Tyler School of Art, I married fellow artist Jim Green. While raising two artsy children I honed my own skills by creating commissioned children’s portraits and house portraits. Later I became the cover illustrator for Montgomery County Town and County Living Magazine and co-founded Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists. I jury area art shows and have won numerous awards in regional, national and international shows including gold and silver medals at Audubon Artists Inc. in NYC at the Salmagundi Club, Allied Artists of America, also in NYC, Philadelphia Water Color Society, Phillips Mill, the Philadelphia Sketch Club and regularly exhibit at Historic Yellow Springs. My work has been featured in galleries, including as invited artist at a recent dual exhibition at Stover Mill Gallery, museum shows and many private collections.
I reside just outside Philadelphia with Jim, a few chickens, and too many gardens. Teaching art to adults has become a passion, and as I am constantly experimenting with different materials and techniques to create various portfolios of work, in the classroom I enthusiastically pass on what I have learned.
Jim Green
Oil Painting
After graduating from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and completing several business courses, I owned and operated a commercial construction business for 30 years. I have now turned my full attention to a career in the fine arts. My studio and the home I share with my artist wife Betz are located outside Philadelphia.
I have exhibited and won prizes for my work in many juried shows and gallery exhibitions including Allied Artists of America, Audubon Artists Inc., both located in NYC, Stover Mill Gallery as an invited artist in a recent dual exhibition, Phillips Mill in New Hope and Historic Yellow Springs in Chester County. Besides jurying regional art shows, I give art lectures, demonstrations and workshops on my painting methods. Over the last few years I have also enjoyed instructing classes at non-profit art organizations.
I create oil paintings using vibrant colors in an impressionistic style with an expressionistic twist. As for subject matter, that includes whatever inspires me in that moment.
Nicole Lee
Acrylic, Watercolor Painting, and Kid's Programming
I’ve been an artist my whole life. From drawing, painting, animation, photography, filmmaking, and pottery, I’ve done a little of everything! I grew up in Feasterville, PA and am the only artist in my family.
I attended the University of the arts in Philadelphia from 2000 to 2005 and have a BFA in film and digital video. Like many others, I loved too many forms of art to focus on just one, so I studied several art forms during my college career including animation, photography, illustration, screenwriting and film.
I absolutely love Disney and the amazing art of the talented people who work for that company, so I partook in an internship program at Walt Disney World during my sophomore year of college. That was an amazing experience that taught me a lot about customer service and work ethic.
After college, I worked on the sets of many major motion pictures that were filmed in the Philadelphia area. I’ve met some truly amazing people and actors through my experiences, but eventually it was time to find more steady work. I spent some years working in marketing before I found an art center and a few paint-and-sip companies that helped me turn my love of art into a professional career. Through the art center, I was offered a role as an elementary art teacher at many different schools. Here I learned that kids are an amazing window to new ideas and creativity and it’s a lot of fun seeing where they go with it.
Working as an artist allows me to create art all the time and that is my ideal job. I am one of the rare few in the world who can say ‘I absolutely love what I do,’ and honestly mean it. I am truly grateful to have that in my life and am hoping it lasts forever!
Veda Manam
Oil Painting and Cold Wax Medium
Fran Matthews
Acrylic Pour
Catherine McIllhenny
Pastels
Catherine McIlhenny is an artist from Harleysville who draws inspiration from the trees, flowers, farms, sky, clouds, and fields near her home. Her work has been included in and won first place and best in show prizes in juried shows at Meadowood, Perkiomen Valley Art Center, GNAL and Pastel Society of Philadelphia where she won a prize for a snow landscape. She was on the portfolio committee of Art Goes to School for many years. She has a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from Penn State. She began undergrad as a painting/ drawing major and eventually realized she would need a job when she graduated. She started an interior designer business 35 years ago, but is ready to retire to a life filled with creating art and teaching.
Roxanne Slemmer
Mosaics
I am a Kutztown University graduate with a BS in Education and a BFA with concentrations in painting and printmaking. I have been teaching art for 10 years and 5 years with Mosaics. I have a community, volunteer based 52 foot mosaic mural in Lansdale Pa.
Jason Rodriguez
Pen and Watercolor, Color Pencils, Kids and Teen Programming
I started drawing Sesame Street’s Ernie and Bert at the age of two, and from then on I couldn’t stop filling sketchbook after sketchbook. In highschool I attended the School of the Arts in Charleston, SC as a Visual Arts major. However, in college, I started to question the purpose of art which led me to give up on it and major in something “useful.” It wasn’t until my mid 20s (while I was in seminary of all places) that I realized I was created to be an artist and that creating art was one of my deepest joys. It was on an iPad in a program called Procreate that I started drawing again. I especially liked the “undo” button and the diversity of true to life brushes. Creating on the iPad got me back into drawing, and eventually I returned to physical/traditional media. I now use both digital and traditional tools to illustrate; for example, I will ink or watercolor a picture and load it into the iPad to utilize the breadth of tools available in a digital workflow. Being part of an Art Community has also been crucial to this journey. I am actively engaged with the Society of Visual Storytelling, an online art school and art community for illustration. I am a major proponent of self paced learning, challenging yourself and finding what’s available to you to improve your craft. Currently, I am homeschooling my own little artists, freelance illustrating and running a custom portrait studio.
Doug Tweddale
Classical Drawing and Painting
I have been an artist my whole life. I remember being nine years old and oil painting with my Uncle Lester Gallagher, an artist from the Midwest who loved painting the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. For the last 30 years, I have been a pastel artist, and for half of that time I have studied with Master Painter Albert Handell. Now that I have retired, I have the wonderful opportunity of making painting my first priority as I travel this beautiful country with my wife Sue. So far, we have been on two three-month extended trips to many National Parks out West. I’ve attained signature member of the Pastel Society of America and the Pastel Society of the West Coast. A story of our 2015 journey and my travel art work was just published in the August issue of the Pastel Journal. During our travels, I conduct “Living the Dream” Plein Air Workshops to share my artist’s knowledge and experience with students as we enjoy painting our treasured National Parks.