Saturday 23 February 2013

Kazuo Oga - Ashley Tsang





         Kazuo Oga is a veteran background artist for Studio Ghibli.  His work spans from many of the studio's films, including Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle and Pompoko.  Most of his work is in watercolour, with a very skillful control of light and shadows.  Anyone who has watched a Ghibli movie will know of the beautiful and breathtaking backgrounds, which often convey the spontaneity of life and the joy of existence, whether it be scenes of nature or of the nostalgic classrooms.  It is exactly this skill in painting that draws me to the pieces.  Each background art can stand on its own, conveying its own message and feeling, but still with the unified atmosphere of the whole movie.
         The pieces shown in this post are from Princess Mononoke, where the setting is primarily forest (one of my favourite subjects to paint).  The last image is from >>this website<<.  It is from Kazuo Oga's second background art-book.

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