Hello,
Processing is not a bad idea. I am always forgetting such solution (maybe because I prefer to do some low level programming, I don't know).
But, Processing language is specialised in graphical effects. You don't have to bother about low level stuff (pointers, classes or whatever), nor with OpenGL/DirectX or any other library.
So, you shoud take a look.
But, maybe you are a programmer and you like the hard programming stuff. If you want to continue with Java, you should look at LibGDX for 2D struff, and LWGL for 3D stuff (LWGL is a wrapper for OpenGL). If you want to start a new language ... well, you can do that too. My advice will be : take a programming language with which one you are feeling the best. Since graphical programming is a complete area in itself, it's better to use a known language to start
