Random Baltimore Photo

I stumbled upon this photo in Sidereal's beautiful photostream on flickr and credited so sweetly to "local children".

...funny that's it's actually a close up of one of my murals (and one of my favorite parts of one too).

written by: danamarie of greenstarstudio

Park Heights Mural Dedication

You might remember this mural from my two-part progress reports back in early summer... well, now its time to officially welcome it to the neighborhood with a community celebration!

Please join Sinai Hospital and the Park Heights Community Health Alliance (and me!) for the dedication of a new building mural commemorating Sinai's 50th anniversary in Northwest Baltimore and its involvement in the community.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 2pm
Mural dedication at the corner of Park Heights and Boarman Avenue, with refreshments to follow!
(take 83 north to Cold Spring West, left on Pimlico and right on Boarman)

For more information, contact Jill Bloom at 410-601-5025

I can't wait to celebrate my most recent public labor or love.
Hope to see you there!

Best of Baltimore

According to the City Paper, the Best Mural in Baltimore is actually SIX murals, spanning the exterior walls of the Waverly Giant.

And among those walls, one painted by BEST's own Danamarie Hosler, of greenstarstudio.

Don't get us wrong: We love having a grocery store in Waverly. But the Giant has always been a bit too suburban for our tastes. The parking lot is too big and the three street-facing sides of the building are completely unused. Fortunately, the Baltimore Mural Program, part of the city's Office of Promotion and the Arts, commissioned five murals--painted by Gary Mullen, Michael Owen, Nelson Rivas, and Danamarie Hosler--to fill up the walls left blank by the store's owners. The murals by Rivas and Hosler are the best, picturing Waverylites past and present in the leafy setting for which the community was once known. Unlike murals that depict a mish-mash of local places and famous people, the Waverly murals are higher-minded, almost making up for the sterility of the Giant's building.

For more BOBs, visit the City Paper online.

A mural, in 7 (more) days...

Well, it's been a while, but since my last update and another 7 days of working, the mural at 4337 Park Heights Avenue is officially done! It took me 14 days from start to finish and a total of 68 hours, and now that it's done, I'd love to share the story of the second half of its journey with you. 

When last I shared an update, all the flat color had been painted and the mural was ready to be taken beyond the "bones" and fleshed out.

day 8:




on day 9, I started adding detail to the landscapes within the bodies... normally, I'd start with the top and work my way down, but as you might be able to tell in the photos, my scaffolding was the victim of some vandalism and the top level was unusable for a while. But, such is the nature of open air projects like this, and you have to just move along where you can. 

day 10: more landscapes; this mural has a LOT more architecture in it than I usually work with, which means this one will need a lot more measuring and a lot more tape. I use tape to "draw" my lines and keep my paint work straight. 
day 11: the scaffolding has been fixed! and just in time... I'm almost done with the body landscapes and ready to tackle the faces. (this is the fun part). 


day 12: unfortunately, I only got about this much painting done before the rain set in. I wouldn't find out for a few days, after the rain had cleared up, that when I left that day, the black paint actually RAN all the way down the mural; black streaks 30 ft long. sigh. 

day 13: The faces are all finished and the last steps are pretty simple--- outline the figures and then SEAL, SEAL, SEAL! Baltimore City murals are finished with an few coats of an Anti-Graffiti sealant-- like a liquid plastic-- which allows any graffiti to be more carefully cleaned off without damaging the paint below. This particular mural, was also being coated with a few layers of clear varnish, to protect the color. That's a lot of coats. Luckily, as it was the day before my vacation was to begin, my brother was in town AND my husband had the day off. So, between the three of us, we were able to cover the over 1900 sq ft in just a few hours. When we left that day, the wall looked like this:

all that was left was for the Acme Scaffolding folks to come and take the apparatus apart, and for me to patch the holes where the bars had been attached to the wall (and where the bare wall would now be exposed, sans paint). I came home from vacation to find the wall exposed, no metal in front of it for the first time in a month, and my work finally visible without any obstruction. I went back with a very tall ladder, a very long pole, and a very brave hubby, and we patched up all the bare spots. 

and today, this is what you'll find there: 

I hope you'll go visit it soon! I have a few other mural prospects on the horizons, so I'll keep you posted if and when there is any news to share. In the meantime, please find out more about the beautiful murals of Baltimore. 

What I'm working on (LARGE scale handmade): Greenstarstudio

Most of you probably know me as the hands behind the Knitimals or the one who makes the coloring books, but in many parts of the city, I am known for standing high atop a scaffold and changing plain ol' brick into something (hopefully) uplifting.

Ok, I was keeping it under wraps until we had full community approval and a confirmed start date, but....I'm officially pleased to announce that tomorrow I will begin work on my sixth public mural here in Baltimore City. A couple years ago I spent a good 2 months painting a 6 panel mural for the Health Department (Guilford Avenue); this mural and a few others caught the attention of Sinai Hospital, who was looking to "donate" a mural to the city, in honor of their 50th anniversary.

So, very soon, this building:



will be transformed into (essentially) this:




The mural will be located at 4337 Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore, and will be a gift to the city, from Sinai Hospital. This year marks Sinai's 50th year and the mural is one of their "50 Acts of Kindness". The good people of Sinai chose me to work with them and together we came up with a suitable image. The message behind the piece is, as it almost always is, love. Giving love & giving kindness--- and the trickle down effect that that kind of behavior can generate. The wall is about 30 x 50 feet and should take me about a month to complete.

I'll be updating my progress on my blog, if you're interested in following along. And of course, if you're in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by. I love visitors, so long as you don't mind me talking to you while I paint!

In the meantime, help me persuade mother nature to keep the days cool and save the rain for evenings!

that's one GIANT mural!

i'm about to turn this...

into this...

or maybe it's the other way around... either way, starting this saturday, april 19th, I'll be painting my latest mural on the back side (loading dock area) of the Giant Supermarket in Waverly (off 33rd street). my panel is approximately 29' by 19' and i'll be working on it for the next couple weeks (if you want to stop by and bring me lemonade or a chiropractor). this mural project (there are 3 other artists working on 5 other panels) is kicking off the 2008 mural season and made possible by the baltimore city office of promotion and the arts, whom i love and i can't wait to see how they turn out! also-- for you local folks, we're supposed to get a fair amount of media coverage on saturday, so i'd like each of you to sign up for a different news station and/ or newspaper and comb through the sound bites and photos for any mention of me.... since i'll be painting and not so much able to watch tv. xoxo, danamarie

BEST member at The Walter's Art Museum

Danamarie Hosler from greenstarstudio just completed this wonderful mural at The Walter's for their terrific family art center. Dana's work now hangs among some of the highest artistic achievements from nearly every corner of the world - and right here in Baltimore! For more information on her murals and other non-Etsy goodness, visit Danamarie at greenstarstudio.com.

greenstarstudio: danamarie hosler

it would be safe to bet that when it's all said and done, this post will take me a good 2 hours to generate. no, not intentionally, but in keeping with the way i do just about everything. yes, i am meticulous. i'm picky; it takes me 30 minutes to buy apples. i'm detail oriented, so don't try to tell me you didn't say that thing you said, because i heard you and i remember it! i get bored easily, so i like to keep busy with worth while things (i'm typing this in between coats of matte medium on that box i just painted). i'm completely controlled by aesthetics (is it blue? is it soft? are there birds on it?). i'm drawn to things of quality. i guess that's why i have distinct memories of shunning children's books i was given as a child, if the artwork in them bored me. the books i loved the most had intricate illustrations; illustrations with depth and history, places to visit again and again, pictures that rewarded me for paying close attention to them. i was still in elementary school when i first started writing and illustrating stories & asking my art teacher why it was that the artwork in kids' books was so much worse than the artwork in museums.

why do grown-ups always get the COOL stuff?!

so, it's probably not too surprising to anyone who knew me then, that i grew up vowing to NEVER make bad art & pass it off to children as acceptable. I knew i wanted to be a children's illustrator, and i wouldn't put it past me to have chosen that career in retaliation for what i considered an assault on my aesthetics! (in case you are wondering... yes, i was THAT kind of child---noticing everything, forgiving nothing, always making & doing). drawing kept me busy in fancy restaurants and allowed my parents the luxuary of a quiet baby or the ability to sleep in on weekends. for me, "making" gave me a sense of self--- i could create things that were all mine. i started going to a magnet school in 4th grade and i got to spend half of every school day for the next 8 years "making". i was 9 years old, but i knew how important art was... plus, art kept me out of P.E. and that was awesome. i grew up in miami, florida and spent a lot of time looking for ways to feel more connected to a city i wasn't connected to at all. so, i initiated a
mural painting mission as part of a community service project in 6th grade. the project started at one elementary school and spread to others; for years, i got up early every single saturday and painted murals on previously graffitied and under appreciated walls. by the time i'd graduated high school & over 3 dozen murals later, i like to think miami and the kids who walked passed those murals everyday had learned a little more about art appreciation.

when i came to baltimore (to go to MICA), i was immediately impressed by a buzzing sense of connectivity. baltimore struck me as a unique city and one with pride in itself; a city that appreciated art, but one that needed love and a little help. i started volunteering for various outreach education programs and once again, i found myself recharged and motivated to make the kind of art i thought people needed. as an illustration major, my main focus was preparing a portfolio to impress publishing compainies, making artwork that would attract a client; as a teacher & mentor, i was more interested in making artwork that would make a difference. i taught mural painting at an "underserved" elementary school over the summer, and watched otherwise "bad" kids make amazing leaps... the kids OWNED this art they'd made; they owned the experience of making it and they beamed knowing all of it--- the experience, the praise & the final product was all of their own making. i illustrated my first children's book in my junior year of college (it was published shortly after i graduated). Two Lives Publishing is committed to publishing and distributing quality (there's that word again!) books for LGBT families; books that depict families like their own (with GOOD artwork and strong narratives). I loved the idea of working with the "underdog", the little guy, the people with vision--- that my first book would be the first book coming from a company that shared my beliefs and goals; a company i knew would never compromise the art of ART.

over the four years i spent at MICA, i was given access to so many different kinds of opportunities, but probably the MOST exciting (and accidental) of all came half way into my sophomore year. i remember sitting in my art history survey class and watching this one girl aimlessly knitting argyle socks... every week she'd be working on a different pair. i don't know her name (or if she passed the class), but i know that she taught me quite a bit. being from miami, i'm not sure i'd ever even TOUCHED real wool before, but when i went home for the winter break that year, i ordered yarn from new england and taught myself to knit. i started with socks and had made ONE before i found myself noodling and experimenting with something else. it wasn't long after that the Knitimals™were born. in early 2000, i found myself absolutely, totally, miserably sick--- stuck in bed and staring at the wall in front of me, at a painting i'd done in haste, while cleaning off a palette. the main character was a stripey, colorful cat with lop-sided eyes and a sweet smile and i remember a shockingly lucid thought (i was heavily medicated) "i wonder if i could knit him?" and i set to work. days later, BeeCat, the first OFFICIAL Knitimal, was born. without missing a beat, i snuggled myself to sleep, and believe it or not, BeeCat and i woke up the next day feeling 100%.

cut to today... i have been fortunate enough to participate in major juried art festivals, exhibitions and shows all over the country, to win accolades & international awards for my work and to have the support of local (and not so local) retailers who share my vision. as a published illustrator, i am happily sharing my carefully considered paintings & drawings with as many people as i can. i'm thrilled to have been selected to paint a number of murals around baltimore and beyond. i work in the education department at the walters art museum and babysit during the day. so, i still get to see, on a daily basis, how critical art really is to the world--- particularly children. greenstarstudio is based around the idea that art should be accessible and available to all people, in all forms, decorative, framed or cuddly. i don't see a distinction between art made & hung in museums and art made and slept with when you have the flu.

I like to think that my work is imbued with my humor & heart. every single thing i make is one of a kind... i won't repeat a design; i don't use patterns and don't believe in copying. because the Knitimals are based on my original characters & illustrations, each one of them is completely unique. each one is hand knit, hand sewn (no machines here!). from start to finish, the average knitimal takes about 8 hours to make, and every single minute of that time is my own.i am very picky about my yarn... i even drive all the way up to maine to pick it out. ok, if we're being totally honest, i would drive all the way up to maine to go to a gas station... but still, the yarn is really important to me. to keep costs down, i try to buy yarn in bulk and i do make knitimals in a range of sizes and using different kinds of yarn, so you can pick out the one that best fits your lifestyle and budget. i aslo make some knitimals using very expensive hand dyed baby alpaca... so, you know, there's a good mix. each doll comes with a hand drawn name tag and care instructions (including a little card about the "story of the knitimals"). it's very important to me that if i am going to put my name on something, i can promise that i know everything about that piece. mass production is scary. i don't like mass-production and i try to stay away from it as much as possible. i think we have enough "things" that anyone can get at anytime from any store. i like unique. the knitimals aren't ugly, they aren't "monsters", they aren't beasts, they're friends. they are snuggly and warm and comforting like sweaters and baby blankets, and i think each one really does belong to one specific person the minute i sew the final seam closed... i've seen that connection made too many times to not believe it. i love the idea that a child could (and they do) come into my booth at a show, walk right up to a knitimal, form a connection with it, and walk away that day not only owning a very cool new doll, but an investment in an art object and knowing that they now have something-- ONE thing, that not one other person on the planet can have. now, that's cool.