Wish we could post all the work of Chinese illustrator Oamul Lu but unfortunately space is limited. The Xiamen-based artist works primarily in paints and watercolors but has also dabbled in animation and hand-carved sculptures. We love the simplicity and innocent quality of his illustrations depicting a lot of what he has seen, heard and experienced in daily life. In an interview on Medium he says this about his background and illustration influences:
“I always liked drawing when I was younger, but I had no idea it was something I could do full-time. I didn’t even know the word for “illustrator” (插画家) when I started! My only official training comes from those run-of-the-mill art classes in high school — the kind where you learn basic watercolors and sketching, and then there are tests.”

“I studied interior design in college, and it wasn’t until after I graduated and moved to Xiamen that I ended up befriending a lot of illustrators and started to draw again.”

“A friend told me that my work was good enough to maybe earn money off of, so I just started trying it out. Eventually, publishers started contacting me and asking to put my work in magazines. In 2014, I quit my job and started illustrating full-time.”

“Nature has always been a big inspiration. My ancestral home is a small town in the mountains, so growing up I spent a lot of time around mountains and plants. These days, I like to pick places with really unique natural landscapes when I go traveling.”

You can find the artist on his website, Behance, Instagram, Tumbler and Facebook.

Images: Courtesy of Oamul Lu.