Melissa is a self-taught pencil realist artist. Her passion for Realistic Pencil Drawing started at a young age after being influenced by Canadian wildlife artist, Robert Bateman and Belgium’s wildlife artist, Carl Brenders. While she mainly uses graphite as her medium of choice, she also enjoys working with coloured pencils, pastels, charcoal pencils and oils. Melissa is also an avid photographer who enjoys taking photos of nature and wildlife animals.

Melissa has been teaching realistic drawing lessons and tutorials in online classes for over 20 years.  This first began in 1999 when she began teaching realistic pencil drawing classes through Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario. Then in 2003, she designed Canada’s first online pencil drawing classes that were being offered in Community Colleges which are now offered through thirteen Ontario Community Colleges. These courses are under the umbrella of OntarioLearn.

Melissa’s realistic pencil drawings have been published in a high school textbook through McGraw-Hill Ryerson as well as an international promotional brochure through Sakura Products of America for her earlier work in pointillism. In 2021, she was a featured artist in a CBC Arts series.

Melissa has commissioned wildlife and children portraits throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe and has participated in many group exhibitions, juried exhibitions, studio tours, festivals and solo exhibitions showcasing my work. For the past few years, Melissa has dedicated her time to teaching youth art classes and adult online drawing tutorial courses.