Thursday, January 19, 2006

Meditation & my progress...

I started painting digital in April 2004. I was hanging around with my buddy Stephan in school. He is a very gifted concept artist and since the day I saw his paintings, I wanted to improve my painting skills as well. He told me that I should paint at least one picture per day. At the beginning of April I decided to start with my daily paintings. The first 20-30 paintings where mostly painted using reference photos. I tried to paint them as quick as possible (around 30min - 60min each) without picking the colors from the original photo, just to get used to colors and values. Once in a while I tried to paint my own pictures that I had in my head. But it was very difficult cause I rarely painted with colors before. I drew my whole life with pencil and paper but working with colors was kind of new to me.

The first few weeks were very hard cause I had to learn the basics, painting from reference all the time...but as I reached around 30 paintings, I started to understand little things and painting without reference was getting easier. Now I knew the basics and Stephan could easily critisize my work. That was the most precious thing during the learning process. I didn't miss one day without painting a picture until the beginning of August 2004. I went to SIGGRAPH and I coudn't go on painting. ^^
Until today I still try to paint as much as I can. Sometimes I painted over an old painting just to compare my improvement. Last year I painted over one of my very first digital paintings and I was really pleased about the result. Here is a comparison of the two paintings.

"Meditation" April 2004


"Meditation" August 2005


I can't describe how much I learned from the daily paintings. There were some really busy moments where I had to animate night and day and I couldn't find time to paint but I never really stopped doing my dailies and I certainly will go on doing them ^^.
Thanks Stephan for the continuous support! Check out his work at www.stephanart.com

20 comments:

andrew said...

Nice paintings, really like the colour studies you've been doing........like the Kong and iron giant ones

keep up the good work

Norm Ryang said...

hey, thanks for your post. your stuff is sweet. i like how you picked up the digital painting with your diligence. good job.

Gulzar said...

Goro I can that you have put in so much of hard work...it has paid off...
Thats really nice...I can see a vast difference...in these two works of your. You have surly matured...
all the best...later down the year...try doing this "meditation" artwork again and then compare yourself...I'm sure you'll be more surprised...
all the best.:)

regards
Gulzar

Unknown said...

Lovely gorgeous paintings!

Emily How said...

this is great inspiration. thanks for sharing your work and insights.

Anonymous said...

Hi Goro-

These paintings are awesome! Thank you.

I recorded a peace meditation which I give away free, and I used your painting as it's image, with full credit to you and a link to this blog. I hope this honors your work to your liking.

Here is the peace audio for your enjoyment.

Namaste,
Jason

2007 Peace Meditation>

Anonymous said...

Hie

Scuse my very bad english
I don't find your email on your website.

I like your paint
I use this one to illustrate a message in my blog
http://lungtazen.canalblog.com/
I write your name, © and links to your website

Is it correct for you ?
If no, send me an email and I delete your paint on my blog

my email : lungta at free point fr

Thank you

Anonymous said...

This is lovely! Would you consider letting my post it at another blog (with attribution to you, of course)? The blog is http://laurayoung.typepad.com/rollingrishi/.
I am helping a quadriplegic friend of mine get a blog up. He's quite remarkable. And this image would really go with the post introducing him.

Anonymous said...

This meditation picture, specifically, is what I am asking to post. Thanks!

Unknown said...

Hi,

Lovely and inspirational picture - do you sell copies?

I've used it quite a bit to help visualisation during interactive meditation - as a starting point.

Thank you!
Love & Light
Debbie McDougall

Unknown said...

Hi,

Lovely and inspirational picture - do you sell copies?

I've used it quite a bit to help visualisation during interactive meditation - as a starting point.

Thank you!

ත‍රිඳු said...

hi
great work i love the meditation painting. i would like to use it in my web site as a background image. i will use your name in image and will include a link to your blog in links page. hope this is ok. if not please let me know mihisara@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Truly gorgeous work! I loved this picture so much, I saved it to my computer and used it as an image for a meditation CD I made for a friend of mine, though all of the artwork wouldn't fit on the CD. The edges had to be left out unfortunately for the project. But it is beautiful indeed!

Unknown said...

Uauh! Amazing image Goro. I first saw it in youtube, it was the first image you could see when you looked for meditation,at least up to a couple of weeks ago. It was linked with a beautiful music, but don't know its name. Any way, right now I have put this image in my pc desk. Thank you, it has a relaxation effect

Anonymous said...

the painting of meditation by the water is so serene and inspiring. thank you for sharing.

Anonymous said...

I notice a couple of your painting is very peaceful and tranquil. It definitely seems to capture the essence of serenity. Would you please do more of this type of painting? I can't wait to see what you come up with next!!!

chitra said...

I couldn't find an email on your blog but would like to speak with you about doing some art for a video project we are working on now. please contact me @
310-920-1509 or email - chitra@newagekids.com
thanks,
chitra

A J said...

oh thank the bloody stars... I finally see the person who painted my favourite painting. Loveeeeeeeee the meditating monk in the picture. Had if for months as my wallpaper and I kept longing to see the person who painted the beauty. The calmness, the serenity is sooo evident in the picture. Also, I'm gladdd, super glad you paint each day. Bless you :=)

Marco Pino said...

I love that 2005 version, you are very talented and it's great to read that it didn't just happened but you actually worked for it. I actually downloaded that image long time ago and used it as a wall paper for my netbook for a few years until some tech guy reinstalled windows. Thanks for sharing

Anonymous said...

Goro: The painting of the monk by the water under the trees means a lot to me. I had a dream many times exactly like that and when I saw your painting last year it was like seeing my dream. I am glad to know the author now. Thank you so much for your beautiful work !
Paula, from Argentina.

PS: Sorry for my bad English.