Briana Pichardo
Artist Statement
I started to draw in middle school, drawing silly little pictures of different characters and landscapes that came to mind, of characters from existing franchises. It wasn’t until high school in my freshman year that I decided to take my little hobby seriously as a career. My interest only grew by watching those Saturday morning cartoons and reading visual novels from middle school to high school. I was fascinated by the styles, colors and movements of the characters on paper and on screen, so I grabbed a pencil and crayons and drew my own characters and stories. I drew on whatever paper I could get my hands on. Notebooks, notepads, sticky notes, even my own homework papers and quizzes. During high school, I partook in competitions and joined a magazine club to further my abilities in drawing and learn from others. I didn’t win any competitions or do notable work in the magazine club, but my understanding of art and graphic design grew. During this time, I am starting to get commissioned for my work. The experience was new and a bit scary, but I managed to satisfy my customers with the final products.
When I’ve been studying here at UTRGV, to be honest, I’m more of an illustrator of characters and writer of stories than creating graphic designs and visuals, but it did help me improve and understand the craft and care that goes into making logos, understanding the software that is needed to create and learn amazing techniques in the process as I continued studying Graphic Design. Looking at what is most important to me as an artist is improvement. Improvement results in great things. You can see the changes and progress that’s been made, only you yourself know the struggles and upcoming of your design in each work that you’ve done. It can be the smallest thing or something you created with no goal in mind, but you can still see it. Seeing your collection grow, you can see how far you come from where you once started. You should be proud, I know I am.
