The “Candy-Flavored” Years
My earliest memories aren’t in front of a screen, but in front of a light table. In Uruguay during the 60s and 70s, I helped my mother with her work for Alpargatas, which was one of the largest textile companies in the country at the time. She would bring home large textile designs that had to be separated by color onto transparent acetate sheets. My mission was to trace with a nib and ink using opacol, and then fill the areas with a brush. My reward for every finished sheet was candy. Thus, without even knowing it, my artistic training began as a sweet game, surrounded by giant leaf designs hanging to dry all over the house.
​From the Figari School to the Marquees of Montevideo
That game eventually turned into a vocation. After training at the UTU Pedro Figari, I started as an apprentice at age 19. I quickly moved from lettering to “figure painting,” creating large-scale models on the commercial awnings of downtown Montevideo’s shops. Those were the days of thick brushes and perspective, creating visuals for buildings under construction that were still just promises of brick and mortar.
​Eventually, I founded Daniel Ghioldi Publicidad. It was a golden era of airbrushing, vibrant colors, and illustrated marquees for toy stores and iconic galleries like El Paseo de los 33 and the GalerĂa del Notariado.
​The Digital Leap
By 1983, a shadow—or a light, depending on how you look at it—began to loom over us: computer design. Many colleagues looked at software with suspicion, but I saw a gap that could either leave me behind or propel me forward. I chose to jump.
​As a self-taught artist, guided by books and the computers at a friend’s institute (where I would later teach), I traded my airbrush for Corel Draw and Photoshop. What seemed like a threat became my greatest tool. I crossed the technological divide and discovered that art doesn’t reside in the medium, but in the vision.
​The World in a Click
That shift allowed me to navigate the next two decades through web design, Microstock, and Print on Demand. The internet achieved what the acetates of my childhood couldn’t: it allowed my drawings to travel the world instantly.
​Today, looking back, I see that every challenge—from that first acetate to digital design—was preparation for what was to come. But as for AI and the new horizons… we will save that adventure for the next chapter.