He began his artistic education at the age of fourteen, at the Chicago Fine Art Academy, and continued it in Philadelphia and New York.
Otis returned to Chicago in 1900 and spent the next fourteen years there, teaching, restoring and designing for the stage at the Opera House and other venues.
While based there, he also painted landscapes in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and scenes of the daily life of the native peoples of the Southwest.
He abandoned his work there abruptly, and spent some time traveling around the Southwest before, settling in San Francisco.
Over the next couple of years, he and his wife spent the summers in Nevada, painting and selling his pictures from a wooden stand.