Hailing from Mexico, Tirso Gonzalez first started drawing when he was in middle school. Starting off drawing caricatures of friends and teachers, he later began to draw cartoons about social issues that affected the people of his city and state. His first work as an artist began at a local newspaper; it took him only one visit to the news editor to get a job as the editorial cartoonist of a major newspaper in his home state.

Tirso left Mexico for the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982 and a year later, was introduced to Mission Grafica at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. He was invited to join Mission Grafica, where he learned to print beautiful silk screen posters. He went on to learn mural painting by collaborating with different muralists in San Francisco.