Art major Andrew Pineda is an independent tattoo artist who came from a graffiti background in Los Angeles.

He first started practicing tattoos about a year ago.

From black books, hard-cover art books, to painting in streets through out the city of Los Angeles.

Pineda was caught up in a world of graffiti art painting everything from freeways, billboard, even bridges and freeway overpasses.

After getting in trouble a few times with the law, Pineda began to find a way out of his old graffiti life through tattoos.

Mentored by a friend who works at a tattoo shop in Pico Rivera called Latin Skulls, Pineda began to realize his passion for the art and now works everyday to be a better tattoo artist.

Pineda expresses some of his experiences he went through in jail, “I met a lot of people [there] and in the streets telling me I was wasting my time [doing graffiti], that I had some talent with art and that I should pursue something that will get me paid for it.

“I thought I’d make money off my talent, so I started tattooing.”

Pineda specializes in script tattooing, which includes many different types of cursive writing and black and white portraits. He said his least favorite type of tattoo art is traditional art.

Undecided major Marcos Larios met Pineda his sophomore year of high school and both shared an interest in graffiti and have hung out since then.

After high school, Larios left California to live in Mexico with his father, returned a few months ago and got a lot of tattoo work done by Andrew, his latest piece was a black and white portrait of the Virgin Mary.

“He’s always been creative, his graffiti work was good but now his tattoos; that’s another level, he went from being something bad to something good,” Larios said.

Pineda has been offered jobs and apprenticeships but has turned them down because he feels that he’s not ready to work in a place he wouldn’t feel comfortable working in. He said, “There’s a lot of things you just have to learn on your own.”