Lois Woolley is an oil and pastel painter whose specialty is portraiture.  Her portraits and figurative paintings are known for their classic style, rich color and expressive mood. Her love for painting portraits stems from an abiding interest in people:  "People seem to me the ultimate subject matter - there is nothing so fascinating, beautiful and universally relevant as an individual person.

Woolley's public portrait commissions include a Harvard dean and a Hospital Workers Union 1199 executive.  She has been featured in Northlight Book's Pure Color:  The Best of Pastel, The Pastel Journal, and Hudson Valley Magazine.  Honors include being a Fellow of the American Artists Professional League, winning Best Portfolio 2004 at the Portrait Society of America, and being the 2005 recipient of the Woodstock Artist Museum's Yasuo Kuniyoshi award.  In 2007, she won the prestigious Joseph Giffuni Memorial Award at the Pastel Society of America's annual exhibit.

Woolley's primary artistic training was in New York's Art Students League where she studied drawing and anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale and painting with Robert Brackman.  Always searching to combine full color with strong form, her association with Zhang and his palette led to her current style.  In 2000 she co-authored The Yin-Yang of Painting, which presents Zhang's color theory and method.   She teaches portrait painting at the Woodstock School of Art.  Represented by Portrait Brokers of America, Portraits North, and Portraits South.