Senior Christian Gonzales, joined “The Rosette” Newspaper in order to finally perfect his writing. Gonzales’ future aspiration is to become a psychologist in order to help others. Gonzales’s hobbies include but are not limited to: buying Monsters, drinking Monsters, and collecting Monster cans. Although Gonzales has been diagnosed with heart arrhythmia due to his crippling caffeine addiction, he plans on increasing the cans in his collection and how many beats his heart can make per minute.

Gough-ing Places: Gonzales’ Journey With Art

Reported by: Sarah Smith

Taking a pencil and measuring stick into his hand, senior Christian Gonzales transforms the world around him into paper. Line after line, shade after shade, the shapes slowly transform into buildings, skyscrapers, memories, geometry. And finally, with one final stroke of his pencil, Gonzales holds up his piece to the sky. A masterpiece.

Senior Christian Gonzales has been mastering his artcraft through careful dedication and vigilance. He hopes to one day maybe use his skill to draw anatomical structures for science institutions.

His journey started in middle school when he had an epiphany.

“I realized that a lot of people can do art, but I was one who really stuck to it more than anyone else,” Gonzales said. “After a while, everyone started taking up other electives, but I kept with art.”

However, Gonzales’ art hadn’t always been at such an advanced level.

“My first drawings were horrible,” Gonzales said. “One time, I sent a drawing to my brother – it was in a groupchat with my dad, and he must have not known because he said it looked really bad. But my dad told me it didn’t look that bad.”

This didn’t deter Gonzales, though, and he kept on drawing for himself.

“I started to realize that after each drawing, I had learned something new,” Gonzales said. “I learned you don’t just start off good, it’s a process. The more you work on it, the better you become.”

Being a perfectionist can make drawing difficult sometimes for Gonzales. His preferred style is monochromatic, which can be ‘very tedious.’

“It takes me forever to finish one drawing because I have to keep measuring and drawing over and over again,” Gonzales said. “It becomes a process of measuring lines and shapes up to six times, and then drawing the real shape only once. The end result is really what fuels all my excitement.”

His initial inspiration came from inside his own home and may have been a result of something hereditary.

“What got me interested in art was definitely my dad,” Gonzales said. “He’s inspired me, because he’s also an artist. He was the one who bought me all my supplies that I needed – color pencils and paper. We would both draw together.”

Gonzales would always watch cartoons with his dad which he would then draw alongside him.

“One thing we watched together was the Simpsons, and I’d draw Homer really badly and my dad would show me how to fix it,” Gonzales said. “That’s how I learned how to shade. It was a bonding experience. It was how we really got close. Every piece I show my dad, I want to show him how much I’ve improved from where I started from and how much I’ve now learned.”

Even though art can make him feel more stressed than he was before he started, the art form still draws him in, pushing him to create more and more masterpieces.

“My favorite part of creating a piece is at the end,” Gonzales said. “You can see all your hard work finally pay off, and all the different elements start to make sense. Sometimes I can overthink my art, and I see every imperfection I make, but it makes me calm knowing that when someone else sees it, they’re not going to see the imperfections like I do. They see everything I did well.”