SketchDiary Engl

Stubborn and creative Illustrator & Writer

Hello! I am Mary Briggite Beksinski

And welcome to my creative world.

Who am I? Who is behind the illustrations, fanarts, fanfics, original stories and everything else? Well, that’s me.

I am Chilean, I am a Visual Designer, Digital Illustrator, Web Designer and self-taught writer. Ah! And I’m also a mom to a few cats, a JoJo’s lover, a slave to visual art, and currently living abroad.

My brand

I used to be called “Marimitral”. Mari, from my name, of course... and Mitral, from the mitral valve.

During my university years, I studied nursing, and I fell deeply in love with the cardiac system.

Over time, I felt the need to reinvent myself with a name that better reflected what I do. That’s how INK was born, a word that means “tinta” in Spanish, and represents both narrative and drawing—two things that can be perfectly created with ink.

And since my second name is Briggite, that’s where Briggite.INK came from — or simply Brig.ink, or even Brigink.

The birth of my new artistic identity: Briggite INK

My Samsung S6 Lite tablet with Infinite Painter: this is how I come to life digitally.

My tools

Well, I work perfectly
on my Samsung S6 Lite tablet.

I use as my only application
Infinite Painter. It seems like an excellent tool for me to thrive in this world.
I don’t need anything else. (for now hehe)

What do I use to write?

Google Docs!
It’s easy to use, and I can keep writing on my PC, tablet, or even on my phone in the bathroom, haha.

That’s why I prefer it: I can always continue, wherever I am.

Fanfic in progress, on Google Docs. You never know where I’ll end a scene.

Traditional drawing, I drew it when I was around 10 to 14 years old. (At that time, I loved Naruto a lot) Done in one of the notebooks I threw away.

Now, everything lives on my tablet. Light, clean, eternal.

From paper to digital

Like everyone, I started drawing on paper.

I never had professional materials: I used the typical school pencils.
I always wanted to learn more about techniques and tools, but adolescence was complicated.

I also liked painting with watercolors or acrylics, but I never managed to fully focus.

Every time I moved, it was a headache finding space for everything I had.
On my last move, I took photos of some old drawings before throwing them away.

I had accumulated so much physical material that it became annoying… even though it was extremely hard to get rid of them.

Eventually, I had to do it. That’s when I decided to switch to digital: I could take my art everywhere, draw without limits, and nothing would get lost.

My first Digital drawing with MOUSE!

When I started with digital drawing, I did it with a mouse in Paint Tool Sai. Back then, around 2012, it was normal to find tutorials on YouTube teaching you how to do it, and if you had enough patience, you could manage it without problem, but of course, the drawings came out flat without many details. Still, I had to try, and well... things like this came out hehe!

My first digital drawing in SAI (around 2012). It was very hard for me. I drew with a MOUSE, because nothing could stop me from doing it!

My first digital drawing made with the Intuos Small in Paint Tool Sai and the filter in portable Photoshop

My first digital tablet (and only one)

My first digital drawings were made with a Mouse
I scanned them and then traced the lines in Paint Tool Sai.
I learned to paint and draw like that, I liked it, but I never really felt comfortable with it.

That’s how I bought my first Wacom Intuos Small. It was small,
but it served its purpose.

With it, I learned to draw better in Paint Tool SAI.

However, I’m quite old-fashioned.
I need the digital to resemble paper.

That’s why I liked SAI: it was simple, clean. Even so, I never fully got used to it.

And as always, I ran out of time, energy, and motivation and ended up abandoning drawing again for years.

My last drawing in SAI was probably around 2017.

My return in 2024

In 2022 I tried to get back into digital art again. I bought a Samsung S6 Lite tablet.

Drawing there was much more practical than with the Wacom, but once again it was hard for me to adapt.
I felt like nothing was coming out right, that the brushes were difficult to handle.
Honestly, I still struggle.

I use a couple of brushes and nothing more.
Sometimes I try others, but I don’t get used to them.
I modify them in the most basic way.
I’m pretty stubborn about that.

I can make a full website for you, but don’t put me to modify a specific program, I lose my mind over it.

The simpler the app, the better.
And if it mimics traditional art, even better.

In the end, with so much work and so little time, I wasn’t drawing anything on the tablet, I ended up abandoning it again, it was worse than a Latin American dad. (sarcasm)
It was only last year that I wanted to get back into this world again, the DIGITAL world.

My return was in 2024. It was inspired by drawing Josuke Higashikata.

Memories that will never return, but can be reinvented

.

My passion for storytelling

I always loved drawing comics. As a girl, I bought notebooks just for that: creating characters, painting them, giving them life.
I had dozens of them.

I also loved writing.
I filled notebooks with stories I dreamed of sharing one day.

My imagination was constant chaos: ideas, worlds, characters.

I thought that maybe, at some point, I could do something with all that.

Unfortunately, I have nothing left of it, everything ended up in the trash. I never thought I would miss it so much, honestly, but they took up too much space, I couldn’t keep storing old things anymore.

My first story, my first destructive critique.

When I was fourteen, I submitted a six-page story for school.

The teacher congratulated me, boosting my ego.

It was about a violinist who sold his soul to the devil, inspired by Paganini.
“You could be a writer” he told me, that damned old lover of books.

But then, as if from heaven to earth, the same guy asked aloud: “How could a girl from a poor school write something like this?”

A few days later, he accused me of plagiarism.
He told me, brazenly and bluntly: “This isn’t yours. You stole it from somewhere.”
I don’t remember my reaction, I know I answered—I never stayed silent, I always defended what was mine with shield and sword.

However, it hurt me more than it should have.
I felt it, Discrimination, simple. How it always arrives, so cold and mundane.
I came from a humble place, with no great opportunities.

The funny thing was that the story had spelling mistakes, horrible writing, it was simple, handwritten, with a cover drawn by me.

Nothing extraordinary.

Still, I felt the weight of envy falling on me, with all the misery of a man over seventy, envying a fourteen-year-old girl who was just beginning to write.

I will really never understand how envy can exist, is it really so hard to turn it into inspiration?
If someone is interested in this world, has talent—especially if they are young and just starting out—don’t make them feel small, don’t be an asshole, just because what they do doesn’t please you, respect someone else’s work.

That’s the behavior of stupid people. Like this shitty old man, whose lived experience was useless, comparing himself and criticizing work he couldn’t understand.

We all have talent in an area, and no matter how big some people get, that doesn’t dim your shine, because we all shine in different ways. If someone asks you, guide them as best you can.


Searching through my old things to share, I curiously found the story, I had uploaded it to Facebook in 2012 wow! I still kept that memory.

Cover made traditionally in 2012 and letters in portable Photoshop READ MY FIRST SHORT FICTION STORY

My stroke remains. Even if I am no longer here.

A mark that will remain

This has been my journey with art and storytelling.
Ups and downs, long pauses.
I never dedicated myself one hundred percent.

But now that I have more time, I want to publish my stories.
Return to those old notebooks hidden under the bed.
Rescue the characters that accompanied me in my childhood,
and share them with anyone who wants to read them.

Thank you for reading.
Thank you for staying.

If you want to illustrate or write, do it.
Even if you don’t like it at first, even if you feel it’s not coming out.
Do it anyway.

Because it is a part of you that will remain in this plane even when you are no longer here.

This page will be my memory. A mark of my existence while I am on Earth… and after as well.

Arrivederci.

🎨 Advice from me to you.

For illustrators, drawers, free artists

By Briggite Beksinski

The world of illustration is difficult
Many times you will feel depressed reading other artists
About what you must do to be an artist, how you should behave, what to use, and what is forbidden.
Because supposedly there are 'rules' you must follow....
Ridiculous rules that only God knows who invented them

Many have been told they are not artists.

That "they just draw."
That if they make manga it doesn’t count.
That if they use references they are copying.
That if they use 3D tools they are cheating.
That if they don’t do realism, they aren’t making art.

And that, simply, is a lie.

What does it mean to be an artist?

An artist is not just someone who paints perfect technique paintings.
Not just someone who studied at an academy.
Not just someone who follows rules or styles validated by others.

An artist is someone who feels, who expresses,
who transforms the invisible into something that is seen, touched, remembered.
And that is not decided by a style, a technique, or a degree.
It is decided by intention, soul, and the unique voice each person carries within.

Tools do NOT make the artist

A 3D model won’t draw for you.
I never learned to use 3D models, they drive me crazy, I don’t understand them, I hate them.
I truly admire those who know how to use them and create incredible characters from a white thing shaped like a human.
If you know how to use them, USE THEM!
A luxury set of pencils doesn’t guarantee a work with heart.
Tools are just that: tools. What matters is how you use them.
What matters is what you want to say, and how you make it resonate.

There’s no cheating in using what you have at hand.
Art is not penance. It is expression.

Art is not a church

And yet, many treat it as if it were.
As if there were faithful and heretics. Untouchable dogmas. Mandatory rituals.
TO HELL WITH THAT!
Art is revolution. It is change. It is subjective.
What for one is noise, for another is poetry.
What you despise may be exactly what someone else needed to see.

No one has the right to define what is valid and what is not.

Toxicity comes from fear

Many who criticize arrogantly do not do it out of knowledge.
They do it out of fear.
Fear of being surpassed. Fear of falling behind. Fear that someone else shines without following their rules.
They become guardians of an imaginary elite,
an elite no one asked them to protect.

And worst of all, their words extinguish vocations.
They censor styles.
They plant doubt where there was once enthusiasm.
And that, that is a true betrayal of art.

That’s why I tell you this:

Create with what you have.
Draw manga, realism, crazy shapes, references, dolls, your dog, your hand, your belly.
You don’t need permission.
You don’t need approval.
You don’t need to follow anyone’s rules to be an artist.

If you create with heart, truth, and intention… you already are an artist and don’t need anyone to tell you so.

Signed:
By Briggite Beksinski
an artist without a leash.