Heather Oattes
Visual Art
Heather was born in Ottawa, Ontario and grew up in the village of Metcalfe. Her love of art began at a very young age and she enjoyed various mediums including painting, drawing and sculpting. When Heather was a little girl, she loved to look at her mother’s sketch book and tried her best to recreate the beautiful drawings inside. Her favourite medium for most of her life has been pencil drawing.
Heather excelled in art throughout school winning several art awards throughout high school. She furthered her education at Durham College for Foundations in Art & Design where she graduated in 2003 as the highest ranked graduate in her program. After college she began a business “Heather Cheslock Personalized Artwork” which involved creating detailed portraits of people and pets using a photograph from the customers. Some of these were memorial drawings of pets which she truly enjoyed, by being able to capture the essence of the animals which greatly pleased her customers. She then concentrated on the pet drawings for over the next five years. During this time Heather rented a booth at the Metcalfe Farmer’s Market where she took orders and displayed her work every Saturday. Comments from her customers always described how detailed and lifelike her drawings were.
After a few years Heather decided to shift the direction of her career and became an assistant preschool teacher at a preschool in Ottawa. She loved this change and discovered that she could use her artistic creativity in the classroom as well. When her own children started showing their love of drawing and a fellow creative friend commissioned her to do pencil drawings for a baby shower gift, this was all the inspiration she needed to get right back into drawing again. Heather's pencil drawings now focus mostly on whimsical creations of animals and wildlife. She is sure to attract the attention of the public again, as she is back at the Metcalfe Farmers Market this season and is looking forward to chatting with customers and displaying her creations.
