Riverside, Calif. (Aug. 15, 2014) – CBU alumnus Geoff Gouveia (‘13) connects with others through writing and visual art. This summer he is passing that passion along to younger students.

Gouveia is teaching a beginning drawing class this month for students aged 12-18 at the CBU Gallery. While teaching drawing technique, he also hopes to teach the students confidence.

"One of the big things that I try to focus on is the idea of confidence within their own drawings," Gouveia said. "I don't like to use the eraser and most of the time I don't supply them with one, because I want them to be confident in the mistakes in the learning process and then through that, maybe it will bleed over into other areas of their school work or in their lives. Within the drawing, I know that confidence is a huge boost in gaining ability."

Gouveia started pursuing art his junior year in high school, but did not take it seriously until his sophomore year after he went on a trip with CBU to Africa.

"On that trip I experienced a lot of emotions and things I couldn't really express in the written word," he said. "I've always kept a journal, and at that time things started to transition from the written word to more visual."

Gouveia expresses himself on canvas and on the sides of buildings. He has painted murals in Riverside, Los Angeles, Tijuana, Brazil and Chile. He enjoys creating murals because of the challenge; canvas pieces may take a month to complete but he only has a few days for a mural.

"The personal challenge of this scale is always really fun with the time crunch," he said. "You have a limited amount of time so your decision making will be really quick, your creativity's peaked. So for me, the murals are a lot of fun and it's a big challenge."

In the drawing class, Gouveia is starting with smaller challenges. For instance, if students can only draw stick figures, he will help them learn form. If they can draw the form well, they move on to light. If they know about light, then Gouveia will talk about proportions.

"There's always something you can work on," he said. "That was one of the most frustrating things that I learned in school, that no matter how good I got, I was never that good. Even if I was taking this class as a student, I could definitely still be learning something. You're never done."