Malissa Lea

Owner and Photographer at Lea Photography & Design

Hi! I am a fine art, traditional and lifestyle photographer in the Spruce Grove area, and I enjoy taking natural and spontaneous photographs of people, places and things.  I have been fortunate to have had some of my fine art work displayed locally in Spruce Grove and Edmonton, as well as in Calgary and other locations in Alberta and in the United States. It is with pleasure that I am able to say that the City of Spruce Grove purchased a couple of my fine art photographs to display in local city buildings.

Thank you for taking the time to view my profile, I hope you enjoy the snapshot of my work below and are inspired to view more on my fine art photography website.

Photographic restoration

I also enjoy taking on the challenge of restorting old photographic family treasures.

pORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY

Creating images of your children and family that you will cherish for years to come is an exciting part of what I do.

digital art

Taking multiple elements from a variety of images and putting them together to create a final product is a custom service I offer.

Biography

Malissa has lived in Alberta all of her life. Growing up in Edson, on the family farm, she has been surrounded by horses, cows, dogs, cats and the great outdoors. She developed an early love of animals and nature, while playing outside with her three sisters, making tree bark plates for strawberry picking, building forts, raising rabbits and sitting on the horses in the shade.

Early on, Malissa enjoyed art, making leaf rubbings or doing pencil sketches of her favorite Disney characters. When given the opportunity, she would try other mediums such as sculpting and oil pastel, but her favorite mediums have always been acrylic and pencil.  A camera was always available to either play with or to use as an instrument to capture memories.

Malissa is primarily self-taught.  Up to grade ten, she received art instruction in school, and has also taken workshops from a local artist, Thelma Maris, to learn decorative tole painting. From these beginnings, Malissa has received private commissions for paintings that people have requested from their old photographs. Her paintings have ended up on a variety of surfaces that range from wood, metal, paper, or canvas. Most notably are her paintings on old metal cream cans using acrylics.  Recently, she has enjoyed acrylic and pencil classes at the Allied Arts Council, photographic skill development at NAIT, and travelling to the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas. She has also completed a diploma in freelance photography through the Photography Institute.  Malissa enjoys the challenge of learning new digital techniques to fine-tune her photographic images and to create digital paintings from her fine art photography.

Currently, Malissa lives in Spruce Grove with her wonderful husband and three beautiful children, who keep her quite busy with all their activities. She is usually able to coax a smile or two out of them for a photo op before they take off again to play one of their many games.  She enjoys gardening, which has given her ample opportunity to practice plant and insect photography; especially, when her girls insist on Malissa getting the camera because they found a cool bug.

As her children get older, Malissa finds herself ready to do more.  She is finding more time to become involved in associations and groups, to make new discoveries, and to meet fellow artists. She has been a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, a member of the Allied Arts Council (AAC) of Spruce Grove and a supporting member of the Alberta Society of Artists.  Malissa enjoys participating in various open art competitions with the AAC and the Alberta Society of Artists.

Malissa’s focus in art, both by hand or by lens, has always been to create pieces that evoke memories and feelings, or to just cause you to pause for a moment. If she is able to do this, then her goal has been reached and Malissa has had the pleasure of sharing her art with you.

resume