We recently connected with Kathleen Burns and have shared our conversation below.
Kathleen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Although I’ve always loved to be creative, and dabbled with some watercolors throughout college, I studied Anthropology undergrad and thought I might end up in academia. I minored in general design, and took some fashion classes after graduating at night to try to figure out where I wanted to go. Years later, I decided to invest in an Ipad for marketing purposes for my job for a family business, and I quickly figured out how to draw with the app Procreate. Finding videos to learn more about digital illustration, and finding artist/illustrators on social media during the pandemic, led me to realize that illustration could be a career possibility. After getting more comfortable with digital illustration, I was motivated to try painting again, playing around with watercolors again, and then my eventual favorite medium, gouache. I remember painting a scene with a teapot for an instagram artist challenge and having a “aha” moment where the style just felt like me, and I realized how much I loved painting and how much I loved art. After years of struggling with health issues, art felt very healing, and I couldn’t get enough of it! Eventually I decided to look into programs and found that there was an MFA in Illustration program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’m currently finishing up my degree this spring, and am so grateful for all the professors, students, friends, and fellow creatives I have made on this journey. Excited to see where I end up!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Throughout my illustration journey, I’ve come to figure out that I prefer a painterly style that is soft and matte. I use both traditional and digital techniques, sometimes even a hybrid approach. I’ve come to love creating surface design patterns from simple vintage stripes to Galapagos Island animals. I like to think there is a quirkiness to my work, and I hope to make people feel happy with my colors and shape-based language.
I have a background in anthropology, so I am constantly intrigued by people and their day-to-day lives. I am currently working on my thesis project, which will be portraits of my family and friends in an ethnographic style. I would love to continue portrait work, and dabble in fashion illustration as well.
In the end, although I’ve experimented with many mediums and styles and approaches, painting brings me the most joy. The process of it feels meditative to me, and I feel I am putting myself into the art with every stroke. I would love to keep creating larger works and to find a balance between the illustration and fine art worlds, which I believe to be complementary instead of at odds.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Besides creating art that makes people feel relaxed, calm, or at the very least more thoughtful, I’d like to increase awareness of art being connected to other academic disciplines. I have a background in anthropology, and it was only recently for my thesis project that I realized how connected the two worlds are. I think most artists are curious by nature, and I believe there is a lot of room for using illustration as a means to depict both personality and culture ethnographically. It was really eye-opening for me to find cultural anthropologists who are also visual artists, and it makes me wonder how I can combine those two interests in the future, whether in further study or practice.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I feel so lucky every day to get to create and paint and use my time in a way that makes me feel both joy and pride. I think it is easy to go down the path that is expected of you by others, but going your own way is a bold choice. Sometimes it can be trying, there’s a lot of discouragement at times, but in the end, the choice to pursue a career in what feels truly an extension of myself is important to me. We all have one life to find ourselves, and I’m trying to do that and not hold back. It takes a lot of support from family and friends, but also fellow artists! That’s another thing I think is rewarding is finding other people who feel the same way you do about art, who love all the same softwares or medium types. Collaborating with other creative people as a team is something I’m hoping to do in the future in any way, shape, or form!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kathleenbillustration.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leenyburns/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenbillustration/