Pin Oak By Melissa Kohout

Artist Melissa Kohout grew up in the ranch and farming country of West Texas. Her love of horses started early, and when she wasn’t riding horses she was putting pencil to paper and creating them.

After graduating from the University of Texas in Austin, she worked two jobs—sales in a western wear store and waiting tables. She quit both jobs the same day. “I decided to sink or swim,” she said. “Art needed my full attention if it was going to be my career.”

She moved to Los Angeles, Calif., where she began attending horse shows in Southern California, and picked up a dedicated clientele. After 10 years she returned to her roots in Texas, where she currently resides in Fort Worth. Her work has been featured numerous times on the Chronicle cover, and is included in several galleries from Texas to California.

While most of her work is portraits or commissions, Kohout does take time out when she can to work on nearly life-size drawings for her own collection. A 4′ x 6′ drawing hangs on her living room wall. “Not everyone has the wall space, but they’re fun to do,” she said.

This week’s cover, Pin Oak, is a portrait of Lynn Walsh’s hunter Ocean Park who has earned multiple championships at the Pin Oak Charity Horse Show in Texas where the portrait was based.

Walsh, Magnolia, Texas, a long-time supporter of the Pin Oak Horse Show and current president, shows Ocean Park in the amateur-owner division while professional Peter Pletcher shows him in the regular working division and USHJA International Hunter Derby classes.