We had the good fortune of connecting with Kathleen Rumfelt and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kathleen, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I come from a family of artists and have been drawing for as long as I can remember. In school I was “the girl who can draw”, – a reputation I still hold. Throughout high school I spent my weekends attending an art school, hoping I would eventually go to an art college with a focus in Illustration. I eventually figured out that drawing was more of a hobby rather than something I wanted to do full-time, so I started working “regular” jobs and just drew when I had free time. In February 2020, before COVID-19 flipped our lives upside down, I visited Disneyland with my family. We passed by the silhouette portrait shop ( they use the traditional hand-cut portrait style, its super cool) and I was inspired to try to draw some on my iPad. I first used my daughters as my models and gradually started drawing my friends’ kids as practice. Fast forward to now, I have made over 150 sales from Instagram and Etsy. Due to the virus I am now unemployed and am a stay-at-home-mom, so I draw these portraits during my girls nap time and throughout the night when they’re asleep. Needless to say, I am not resting a whole lot these days but it is worth it! 

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I draw digital portraits of families, children, and pets – with a specialty in child silhouette portraits. These portraits are side profile portraits of a person or animal and is all blacked out, with little to no details showing. Historically, silhouette portraits have been around since the 1500’s and were used to memorialize a person at that exact moment (this was before photography was invented). They are traditionally made with the artist cutting out the side-profile of the person with scissors and paper, all in real-time. It’s a cool process that is hard for me to describe, I suggest you google it and learn something new! There are tons of artists that do silhouette portraits these days but I think I’m a *little* different because I hand draw these portraits instead of using an application or editing software. I spend a lot of time adding the tiny details to the person’s face and especially the hair – this is what I get complimented on the most. I love drawing these portraits because I think they make special and sentimental keepsakes that can be cherished forever.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to make a shoutout to Karissa Collins. When I first started my Instagram account back in late June, I reached out to several big-name Instagram accounts to see if they’d like to collaborate. I am a huge introvert so this was painful and embarrassing for me to do *cringe*. Karissa was one of the women I messaged and I was delighted when she replied back (I was getting left on “read” by the other accounts). She was kind, easy to work with and shared my work with her followers – this helped get my small business on its feet. Since then, she has continued to support me and my business. Karissa is actually the person who referred Shoutout to me. She is awesome. Thank you, Karissa!

Website: www.Etsy.com/shop/dearlilithdesigns
Instagram: DearLilithDesigns

Image Credits
All images are of my artwork

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