Melinda Littlejohn was raised on quarter-horse ranches in New Mexico and Northern Oklahoma. Surrounded at an early age by the artists and writers who frequented her maternal family's home, the Taos Inn, she gravitated to a career as a fine art painter and sculptor. Her aunt, Helen Martin, founded the historic inn and was one of the first Anglo woman artists active in the area.

As a young child, Littlejohn sketched and painted with various artists that frequented Martin’s salon, as well as that of her mother, a well-known art collector and patron of Taos museums. Littlejohn spent her childhood summers painting and showing five-gaited Saddlebreds and Quarter Horses on the Western show circuit. She studied sculpture in Paris after attending Interlochen Arts Academy in Traverse City, Michigan. After developing an interest in animation and film graphics, she graduated from Cal Arts with a degree in film and the fine arts. Littlejohn moved to Malibu and began working in the animation film industry and raising her family. In 2010, she moved back to Taos to paint full time.

melindalittlejohn.com