OstrichLand

Emu Hello from Sean Szeles on Vimeo.

Film from Argentina

Argentina Drawings 2 - People

Well here are the last batch of drawings from my trip to Argentina. I seem to only find time to upload stuff on the weekends, so my posts usually end up being filled with a lot of drawings. I think it might be better to post just one a day, but I guess I just don't have the time during the week. Oh well. During my trip I was either on the go or eating great food with family. So most of my drawings are during lunches, dinners, and coffee breaks. Above is my uncle Hernan. He has a real distinctive looking face, so it was really fun to draw him.
I did this more caricatured one right after the first drawing. I found it a lot easier to caricature someone after trying to draw them realistically first, so I started doing it more as you'll see.
Here's Osvaldo, my aunt's father.
Here's Hector, Osvaldo's brother, and my aunt's uncle.
Here's one of Osvaldo and little more caricatured.
Here's Lucio, my second cousin.
And a weirder Lucio more caricatured. It turned out more like Rodney Dangerfield.
Here are some sketches of this really interesting, cute, flight attendant. These are actually done from memory though.
I think the middle one above is the closest I got.
Here's my cousin Florencia.
Here's my other uncle Adrian.
Here's a woman working at an eyeglasses store.
Here's my other cousin Maria Sol. She's super cute. She likes to draw a lot, so we would draw eachother a lot. She actually really likes The Buzz on Maggie, which down there is called Maggie La Mosca con Onda. So I drew her a bunch of Maggies and Puperts and she liked them a lot.
My uncle Adrian again. I like how these watercolors turned out.
Here's a friend of my mom's Beatriz.
And her husband Raul.
Here's another one done from memory of a girl at a restaurant. I like how it turned out, but I don't know exactly what she's doing with her hand.
And finally here's another of Maria Sol gulping down a Submarino after school. A Submarino is basically chocolate milk, but they serve you hot milk and some chocolate bars, and you mix them together. You can get them almost everywhere. The don't make ones with soy milk, but I remember them being exquisite went I was there 10 years ago.

Argentina Drawings 1

Here's a selection of drawings from my sketchbook when I was in Argentina. The airport is a great place to sketch. There are people every which way doing all sorts of things. Okay, most of them are mainly just waiting around, but that makes them easier to draw.

I've already mentioned my love for the architecture down there, so here's a little unfinished sketch.
Fun!
The service in Argentina is amazing. Mostly all the waiter were men and super professional. Here's a typical porteno waiter. No matter which confinteria you go to, they wear bowties and vests.
Lots of distinguished looking older people in Buenos Aires.
Fancy drink cart at my mom's friend's house.
This was a creepy statue made from wood in a museum I visited.
I don't do much watercolor, but I like how this came out. The espresso was excellent there! Next post, portraits of relatives and others!

Buenos Aires and Back

Hey everybody! It's been a while since I've updated, but a lot has been going on. I got back from Argentina 2 weeks ago, and have been super busy at my new work on the awesome El Tigre at Nickelodeon. Also the phenomenon known as ComicCon took place. But for now, here's a look back at my incredible trip! I was in Buenos Aires for about 2 and a half weeks with a 4 day trip to Las Cataratas del Iguazu (which is on the border of Argentina, Brasil, and Paraguay). I literally took over a 1000 photos, digital and film combined, so believe me when I say this is just a small sample of shots. These are some of my favorites that aren't just of my mom and I (who I traveled with).
Buenos Aires is an amazing, humungous, city in the vein of New York or Paris. It's very European compared to the rest of South America. Wow, this sounds like a book report or something. It was hard being a vegan in a country known for it's amazing beef, but I managed to eat quite well thanks to my aunt who cooked a lot of great food for me.
Above is the view from their apt.
I absolutely love the architecture in Buenos Aires, from the awesome houses to the giant buildings downtown. The houses all had huge, decorative doors, as pictured above and below. In the photo above is my uncle and cousin. My uncle's around 6'4" and he looks tiny compared to that door! Below are some strangers who also look tiny.

In combination with the doors, most houses also had some sort of balcony with equally ornate structure.


Above is a kiosko. There was one on every block pretty much. You can buy magazines of course, but also dvds, candy, books, etc. depending of which one you went to.
A nice shot of my other uncle braving the Buenos Aires traffic. I've never seen such insane driving in my life. There are no stop signs and most of the main streets which span 4 or 5 lanes, don't have painted lane lines at all! But I like how they have a second yellow traffic light after the red and before turning to green.
Above is a panoramic view of the waterfalls in Iguazu. The main big one on the left is called La Garganta del Diablo, or the Devil's Throat. On the left side of the river is Brasil and on the right, Argentina. It was amazingly beautiful walking through the jungle here. The birds above live on the rock walls behind the huge waterfalls. Apparently their feet are hooked in a way where they can cling to the wall, but they cannot perch on a branch. At least that's what the guide told us.
My mom and I staring down the devil's throat.
Here's my cousin Maria Sol feeding a duck.
And finally, I just noticed this shot when sifting through all my photos. The train tracks run directly into the setting sun. Pretty awesome considering I took it from a moving car.

So I hope you enjoyed this brief photo recap. I have a lot of drawings from the trip that I'll hopefully scan soon and post. So stay tuned. I'll aslo talk about the great Cartoon Museum I went to and post some photos of the original artwork I saw there.

Saludos de Buenos Aires

Hey everybody! Sorry for the lack of posts latelty. But this time I have a fairly good excuse. I'm in Argentina right now visiting family and such and having a grand ol time. I'm taking lots of photos and trying to draw a lot, so I'll have plenty to post when i come back in 2 weeks (3 weeks total). I'm also finding some great books and old comics that I'll have to share as well. ¡Chau!

Vacation Drawings 3

So here are the girl and doodle drawings of my trip. I actually have more cartoon doodles, but they'll have to wait. All of the girls were drawn from life, except the one above, and the last cartoony girl (like, you couldn't have guessed). Some of these girls were strangers and some of them friends, or friends of friends. Either way, I always tried to get their name, just because it's more interesting.
Girls lying around the Lagoon in Cairns, Aus.
Weird skinny girl.
This was a girl I just started drawing at the beach. Then my friend, a Frenchman, made me go show her my drawing. Actually he dragged her over to me to show her. Her name is Mariska and she's a model from Holland. Neat-o!
Same girl.
These girls were friends of my friend Aaron, whom I was staying with in NZ. This girl Kate was arguing and arguing with this guy over the stupidest things. I found it quite funny.
A girl at the hostel in Wellington. I didn't get her name because she was with a group of girls. Very intimidating.

Valentina and Virginia were friends of my Italian roommate, and new friend, Leonardo. They were booth really nice and fun to hang out with. Valentina is tired of living in Italy.
Some girl at a pub.
A friend of my friend Aaron. Fiona was a nice girl who we'd always run into in town, since Wanaka was so small.
Other random girls.
Dance Dance Dance!
You'd better watch where you're going...
This weird bum character I like to draw sometimes.
A not-that-great drawing of my friend Aaron, and some doodles.
I call this guy Fat Willie, because he looks like a fat Willy Wonka. I still need to finish him.
He's late apparently.
It's funny making drawings out of marker splotches.
Cheetah and bum again.
This was actually drawn before my trip, but I just thought I'd throw it in there. This is my friend Jorge in a meeting at Nick. He's the most macho guy I know.