A visit to Charles Hu and the 3 Kicks Studio

I went to visit Charles Hu in his Studio in Pasadena and he allowed me to take some pictures to post here! :)

Charles Hu teaches Anatomy at Gnomon and 3 kicks, (and yes, he is the owner of 3 kicks!). I still didn't have classes with him but I'll probably do next term, and I'm very excited for that! My mom was his student before so she introduced me to him. hehe
I hear teachers from Gnomon recommending his classes all the time, Jack Bossom from Figure Drawing and John Brown were some of them. You will also see many ads of the studio at Gnomon, so I guess it's a place you should know of when you come here.

From what I understood, different from most classes at Gnomon, 3 Kicks is more focused on traditional art and teaches all the basics you need to develop your best artistic skills while Gnomon usually picks the students who supposedly already have that knowledge to teach CG. So I guess the students who have been the right amount of time taking classes at 3Kicks would increase their chances to be accepted at Gnomon for example. They basically teach you what every good artist should know.

This is their website, please take a look at it if you're interested and contact the school of you have any doubts: http://3kickstudio.com/default.aspx

As you can see, Edgar Silva is also a teacher there! :) According to Charles he's the best teacher if you want to learn more about color theory - not meaning he's a better artist than Sean Cheetan of course. If you notice, Cheetan's skin colors are very similar to each other as opposed to Edgar's, while he can still paint amazingly well with his palette. So your choice have to be based on what you need to learn, and of course you can ask the Charles or any other teacher to guide you with that.

So here is the studio's entrance. It's a building with many kinds of businesses inside, so if you see the hair salon, you are in the right place - you just need to enter the little door on your right and follow the signs for the studio:

The pictures I took inside the 3 kicks classroom:

Inside Charles' room (most of the works here are his) :

There's a Steve Huston's painting there, he was Charles' teacher and amazing as well.

And Amy Yung's room with some different artist works (most are hers as well):

I hope you enjoy it ! (and I that I can take some classes there in the future hahaha)

Other schools, workshops and conventions to go!

As I told you on my last post, you don't need to go only to Gnomon when you com to Los Angeles, there are plenty of other interesting places you can go and learn something. There are many teachers from Gnomon who also teaches in other places, such as the 3 Kicks Studio, in Pasadena. You can easily get there by subway, even though it is a little bit far from Hollywood, maybe about 1 hour or so, but if you are taking Figure Drawing classes or anything similar, use it as a good thing, and draw the people on the subway to show it to your teacher as the homework he asks. There are also interesting classes at The Getty Museum. This museum is awesome! Unfortunately the only time I went there I stayed most of the time outside the museum studying a little bit of photography and when I got inside the museum was closing already. It's beautiful, and if you appreciate architecture I'm sure you will want stay outside just like I did, it is just as good as the art pieces on the inside. haha But here are some pictures I took of the museum so maybe this blog will look more pleasant for you to see! haha

If you like photography there  is the Lomography Gallery Store at the Santa Monica Blvd., and they give very cheap one day workshop. They cost $10 if you don't have the camera, and $7 if you do. I really wanted to take that one but I will have to wait... so I'm just sharing. hehe

There is also a good blog that Alex Oliver, my teacher in Brazil sent me the link and I am also very curious to take some classes as soon as I can, the Concept Design Academy.All of their posts are about new workshops being released, more than once a month.

If you love sculpture, specially the traditional kind, you can try taking classes with Jordu Schell, at his studio. I think there's not so much to say, since you will be taking classes with Jordu Schell himself, right? haha He sure is a great sculptor.

Another workshop for sculptors that seems to be great, is the one with Richard Macdonald. This site is in flash and I couldn't just put the direct link for the workshops, so just go to "The Artist">"Workshops". :) I just came back from the Dawson Cole gallery in Laguna Beach, featuring his works, and I am still amazed with them, it sure was the best gallery I have been there so far.

Finally, and specially if you come on summer, between June and August, there are many conventions happening, just like Siggraph and IMATS. Siggraph is all about CG, technology, you can even be on a interview for a job to a great studio, right there. Gnomon uses to give the students a break of one week when Siggraph is happenning at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This year it is going to be in Vancouver, but in case you have a chance to go or if it happens here again, you'll love it! There are many lectures from people who worked om the best and newest movies, every day, all day. About IMATS, I couldn't be there last time, but it is a big make-up convention, and it is mostly make-up for movies, so there is another very good place for a sculptor to be! With many lectures and make-up stores... and I hope I can be there this year :)