Upcoming Workshops

SURFACE DESIGN WITH FABRICS WORKSHOP 

with Mimi

Learn how to print your own designs onto fabrics to use in your textile artworks.  Take your art to the next level using original surface designed fabrics.

Time: 4 hours

Supplies: All supplies are included in the cost.  You take home all your papers & fabrics.

Note: Wear art clothes or bring an apron.

Spend the first part of the class learning the basics of Gel Printing on small papers.  Once you have Mimi’s easy process down, we will print on fabrics.

Bring any of your own fabrics to play with also.  Then take home all your beautiful fabrics to use in your art projects.

Mimi Damrauer is an award-winning paper collage artist and instructor from Phoenix, AZ.  She combines painting, stitching, drawing & collage to create, modern, one-of-a-kind artworks.  She considers her wobbly designs to be Outsider Art which has a primitive folk-art feel.

Growing up with a very creative mother and sisters meant that art projects, cooking and entertaining were a constant.  Mimi’s love of people, art, and fun led to a career in Chicago in Special Events and a spot on the art fair circuit across the country selling her vibrant textile and now paper collage artworks to collectors everywhere.  

A collaboration with retailer Crate and Barrel resulted in the fall 2008 debut of the best- selling "Sebastian" rug at Crate and Barrel retail stores nationwide and internationally via the Crate and Barrel website.

A lifelong student of fiber arts, Mimi studied with Nancy Crow and is always expanding her knowledge with research and learning from others.  Mimi’s art classes are a place to have fun and learn simple techniques that will be a foundation for you to build upon in your own art journey.  Her philosophy is that if you can learn one or two little nuggets that advance your artwork, that is everything. She teaches various workshops at her cute studio space in Phoenix and other local art schools.  She can also be shipped in to your own location!

www.mimidesignsart.com
IG: mimidesignsart
ETSY: MIXTBAGS

I am so happy you have decided to journey into the world of yarn couching. It is a fun and unique type of fiber art. It is great for use on wearables, home décor and wall art. If you are familiar with my thread painting, you have seen how I create realism with thread. With yarn couching you will not be going for realism but instead for impressionism. Yarn is thick. This thickness prevents realism in small objects. Think of Paul Cezanne, instead of Jeremy Lipkin.

The project can be used on the object of your choice. I put mine on a white jean jacket, but it could easily become wall art, home décor or whatever your imagination desires. You will receive a class supply list which you can dig through your stash or head over to a local store to find your supplies. I will also have the choice of buying the yarn from me for cash or Zelle payment and you bring the other supplies.

The class is purposely small to allow for individual attention when needed. Class size is 5 people. Have questions? Email Shelley at shelley.koss@gmail.com. Hope to see you there.

**A free-motion sewing machine with a yarn couching foot is required. This is not a hand sewing class.

Shelley Koss is an award-winning fiber and watercolor artist. She resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her talented architect husband, Erik Koss of Koss Design +Build. She is a two-time spontaneous coronary artery dissection survivor (SCAD). In the past two years she has won 14 local and regional awards for her artwork and been juried into 24 local, national, and international exhibitions.

Shelley’s fiber art is driven by a modern aesthetic. Bringing a social issue to light by cutting the issue down into its most simplistic image challenges her. Allowing the simplicity to drive the viewer’s thoughts in directions that she did not anticipate pleases her. Creating an open-ended commentary so that art drives discussion signals her success.

Much of her thread and watercolor painting is guided by her perception of nature and a desire to realistically create an image solely with thread. Shelley zeros in on a detail getting to know the subject intimately. The density of the fur, the reflection in the eye, the wetness of a petal guide her curiosity and hands to create one-of-a-kind portraits. Her nature comes out in her abstract watercolor fabric portraits and abstract modernism.

Shelley’s fiber art can be traditionally bound or framed. She also paints in watercolor and in thread. Thread painting is a technique of painting on fabric with thread instead of oil or acrylic paints. The threads are densely free motion stitched to create a work of art. Frequent thread color changes create objects, shadows, light and intensity.  Reflection and depth are created using different sheen threads with different thread weights and textures. 

Each work of art is one-of-a-kind.

You will learn how to create a “professional” bottom selvage using plain weave, full hitch knots and sumac stitch. From there you will learn some tips  on weaving a tapestry without following all the “rules” of traditional weaving. Definitions and stitch diagrams will be provided. A kit will be available for purchase at the workshop ($25, see photo). All materials will be provided. Just bring a pair of scissors. Some weaving experience is helpful, but not necessary. 

Shelley attended one year at the Otis College of Art and Design studying fine art. Then, completed a degree in Architecture at the College of DAAP at the University of Cincinnati.

She continued to pursue artistic endeavors after college while working and raising a family, but finally discovered her passion for fiber art in 2019. This interest had been nurtured from childhood by both of her grandmothers. One was an amateur seamstress, making all of her and her family’s clothing and the other was a hand quilter and maker. Although very different, they both strove for perfection in their craft. This influence of design, craft, and perfection is an integral part of Shelley’s work.

View it here:

shelleyanndesign.com

@shelleyanndesign_fiberartist