Watercolor artist Cheryl Moskaluk was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada but raised on a remote quarter section of boreal forest south of Grande Prairie, on the banks of the Wapiti River. A childhood spent helping with large family vegetable gardens and playing “in the bush” down by the river, greatly influenced the direction her art would later take, in homage to Alberta’s wild places.
When she moved to Lethbridge for college, she also began her life-long love for more of Alberta’s special places in the Eastern Slopes. During her 10 years in print journalism, she gained photography skills and took special interest in profiling many creatives she came across, such as Evy McBryan and Robert Guest in Grande Prairie and later many local artists in St Albert, such as Monica Tap. Their insight and imagination had a great impact.
It was not until much later, after she married and was eight years into the raising of three young children in St Albert, that a spark was lit. Her enrollment in the U of A Extension Fine Arts Program opened a whole new life direction. Art would be a huge part of whatever came next.
Alongside the beginning of her own art practice in 2009, she returned to work that echoed from her youth: jobs in landscaping, gardening and retail greenhouse plant production. She found her art community in the St. Albert Painters Guild and the Visual Arts Studio Association.
Her current seasonal work on a gardening crew keeps her outside, keeps her constantly painting in her head and provides ongoing inspiration. She continues to paint, sketch, hike, kayak, and take photographs in the Rockies of Jasper and Southern Alberta. She appreciates nature at home too, around Big Lake and St. Albert.
