After studying for a year at the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in the Netherlands in 1966, González returned to Colombia and began her most characteristic work, that depicting "the heroes of Colombia's long history, the portraits of ‘decent’ families that were published in the newspapers, episodes from the social pages and the crime report, naive scenes painted on buses, popular stamps and stickers for sale at the Pasaje Rivas." Her works Notes for an Extensive History of Colombia I and II (Apuntes para la historia extensa de Colombia I y II) earned her the second prize in the XIX National Artists’ Salon in Colombia and unleashed a confrontation with the historian Arturo Abella, who considered her work a mockery and a knockoff, whereas Beatriz considered it a "version" of the portraits produced during the wars of independence.