Every now and then you stumble across an artist whose work you are so taken with that you absolutley MUST buy the $100 book his work is featured in even though you can't afford it! The artist is Los Angeles based Nathan Ota and the book I am referring to is Hunt & Gather, Discovering New Art by Tina Ziegler.
About Nathan, in his own words...
"Ever since I can remember, I have always found myself drawing over doing my homework. My early influences came from cartoons on television, comic books, photographs and Punk-rock flyers. I can still remember sneaking into my older brothers room and raiding his ,"Vamperella" comics and trying to copy or trace all the covers I could get my hands on. Classical art never really interested me at that time so I turned to what really spoke to me with artists such as, Robert Williams, Olivia, Puss Head and Raymond Pettibon. Traditional art never came into the picture till I started high school but it still didn't speak to me. I always found myself gravitating toward popular culture and at that time it was graffiti. I was completely hooked! I loved everything about it, the clicking of the ball in the can when shook, the sound of the constant flow of the paint, the scraping of the can against the wall when drawing, the colors, the scale, the friendships and the complete feeling of freedom. Till this day, whenever I smell spray paint in the air, it brings back good times. I still dabbled a little in graffiti once I entered the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California but a whole new world of art was opening my eyes with Illustration. I never knew what I wanted to do when I entered college and kind of left it in the hands of the instructors to lead me in whatever direction I was going. It was a bit frustrating at first but soon after, I started to get it and knew that I was going to be an Illustrator.
Shortly after graduating in 1993, I started working as a freelance Artist for newspapers, magazines, recording companies, background art for the gaming industry and gallery."
Some of his amazing work...
To find out more go to:
http://www.nathanota.com/index.html
Walls of inspiration in Sandra's home studio.
Some of our clothing designs, available on http://www.redbubble.com/people/imok
Fashion Inspiration board. We both LOVE fashion and are hopelessly addicted to buying magazines. We used to fold the corner over of all the things we dreamed of owing or emulating. With sooo many magazines laying around we have now taken to tearing out all the pics we love and putting it on a board. It really does help the shopping process and getting things you actually want and will wear. Fun to create one each season. Here is my latest!
