This is a card I created from a scratch board I drew of Coney Island, in Brooklyn, NY. All of my friends will tell you that Coney Island one of my favorite spots. It is a short-ish subway ride from my apartment and it contains the perfect mix of glamour and grit. The hot dogs are fantastic, the cheese flavored topping is suspiciously bright yellow, and there are still huge portraits painted on the sides of the buildings for a freak show. The area is "in transition" right now which in New York means that condos and banks are coming to take the neighborhood away from the Freaks. Coney will always live in the collective conscience through movies like On the Town, Annie Hall, Requiem for a Dream, and The Warriors.

This picture prominently depicts the Parachute Jump, a which is sadly no longer running. This structure serves as the main landmark on the boardwalk. Behind the Parachute Jump you can see several tall apartment buildings, the Wonder Wheel, and the Cyclone. The large sandy beach stretches to the right of the picture and eventually to Brighton Beach, New York's Russian Community. (Another one of my favorite spots!) Since Coney is on the Atlantic Ocean large weather fronts are not unusual to see as they slowly float out to sea and make their way to England. Here I have depicted some of the most magnificent clouds I have ever seen.

If you like this card please check out my Etsy page where it is available for purchase. http://www.etsy.com/shop/danieljosephdurkin . I would like to thank everyone for checking out this posting. Hope you're having an exciting summer! -Dan :)

It is cherry blossom season and I am proud to have finally completed a card for this quasi-holiday. Here in Brooklyn, our local Botanic Garden has a fantastic annual "Sakura Matsuri, Cherry Blossom Festival". This year I went with my friend Shawn and we were amazed at how many New Yorkers will come out in droves to celebrate together... We suspected that many were using Sakura Matsuri as an excuse to dress in a kimono or in the costume of their favorite animated character.

The illustration here is of the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. Although I have never been to DC in Spring, I have heard that their Cherry Blossom Festival is wonderful. If you are interested in this card please check out my Etsy page at www.etsy.com/shop/danieljosephdurkin. The question is... what do I draw next? Suggestions? Please post a comment or send me an email!

Hope everyone is well!

Koi Pond

I love koi fish! It was just a matter of time before they ended up appearing on a card. My boxes of photographs have been filled with snap shots of koi fish from garden ponds for the last several years. Drawing koi also gave me the fun excuse to work with a very exciting shade of orange. If you like this card it is available on my Etsy page at http://www.etsy.com/shop/danieljosephdurkin .

Although this is an illustration of koi, I have to admit that lobsters and seaside port towns have been on my mind following my recent trip to Maine! Please stay tuned for new sketches and artwork!

(Titles for this posting that you will be GLAD that I did not use; "Koi to the World", "Let's Hear it for the Koi", "Babes in Koi-land", "Koi-es Don't Cry", "Koi Vey!")

A Silver and Bronze Forest

This is photo of a recently completed wall painting commissioned by the visual team at the company I work for. They needed an autumn/winter looking background for a new collection. The idea was to pull out the silver and bronze tones so I only used two colors of metallic paint and built up several layers of each to create a sense of depth.

All in all I was pleased with what we ended up with... Anyone artist/designer will tell you that often you get half way through a project and think, "Oh no... what if this ends up looking terrible!? What'll I do!?" This particular project gave me a larger dose of that anxiety than I have felt in several months... Oh well. On to the next project!

P.S. I also just got back from a brief mini-vacation to Maine. What a great state! I took a million photographs and I am going to try to do some Maine based artwork soon. Stay tuned for updates.

Project Completed

Here is an image of my three pieces of art in the installation. The bedding and room were styled by my friend and coworker Jesse Sandobal. He was the one who commissioned these three pieces of art to tie the room together. Hopefully this will lead to other art based styling projects in the future. (We did a very successful installation together over a year ago. You can see images of it in one of my very first blog postings.)

Spring is hitting New York and I find myself walking more and more often. The first few flowers and leaves are beginning to sprout. This is going to be a beautiful Spring!

Heaven Sent Commission

Things have been busy lately. I'm pleased to report that my company commissioned three pieces of art from me... Although they did not ask for my original art or something from my portfolio I was still happy to be working. The project was for three large format canvasses with enlarged images based on sketches from a famous Italian furniture designer. We dug through his sketch book to find appropriate inspiration for our triptych. This is a photo of one of the three completed canvasses in my home. (Please note the original sketch taped beside the final art.)

Currently the book on my bedside table is titled "The Rape of Europa" by Lynn H. Nicholas. She writes a very interesting (though slightly dry) book on what happened to all of the greatest artistic masterpieces in Europe during World War II. The cover of the book has a photograph of the great hall of the Louvre totally empty except for picture frames. At the time of this commission I just happened across an image in my book of the Winged Victory being evacuated from the Louvre. If this statue could talk imagine the stories she would tell!

Once the presentation space is photographed professionally I will post additional images of the art in the finished space. Hope everyone is well, and thanks for reading!

Luck of the Irish

Here is a St. Patrick's Day card that I have spent several days trying to work out. I feel that it is a neat St. Patrick's Day card and I am proud that I have totally avoided stereotypical pitfalls like rainbows, pots of gold, and leprechauns. (Not to imply that those are bad...)

I wanted to include some writing on the inside of the card so I did research on three things, Irish toasts, Irish blessings, and Irish wit. So far, I have selected one phrase and included it inside the card; "May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live." This struck me as both clever and not cavity inducing-ly sweet.

As of writing this post I have not yet hammered out all of the details with this card. I am sure that some adjustments will be made in the next few days but for now it is available on Etsy at my site, http://www.etsy.com/shop/danieljosephdurkin.

Briefly, before I finish, I would like to mention a holiday that I have never ever heard of until a few weeks ago. Someone at a party mentioned in passing "Evacuation Day". When I wondered aloud what this day was (and silently wondered if this holiday needed a card) I was told that in the Boston Area they celebrate the day the British retreated out of Massachusetts to Nova Scotia on March 17th. This just happens by some great historical coincidence to fall on St. Patricks's Day... Thus the public sector workers of America's largest Irish Catholic city get St. Patrick's as a paid day off. How funny! (In full disclosure the blogger is an Irish Catholic who also enjoys days off.)