Bike rides—I love riding my bike down to the Rio Grande here because of the sweet smell. I think it’s because of the willow trees. They seem to be weeping sweetness because it’s Spring. And It’s just getting so green by the river. I have a problem with this kind of green in this image however because Photoshop likes to default to it as one edits and manipulates an image of art. Nonetheless, I had been wanting to challenge myself using this green in a way that I like. This particular version of the original artwork naturally drew me to like it upon the first hue manipulation I did of it.
I titled this drawing Tisk Raker. It’s a play on words for “risk taker.” It’s supposed to denote the quality of intensity as expressed by an intense green. Intense colors can be symbolic of intensities in people and their personalities. I have a lot of Scorpio energy in me, according to Western astrology, and my birth chart. Scorpios seek out intensity and often find it in extreme emotions, experiences, and people.
My made up word “tisk” can be taken as tsk, as in “tsk, tsk, tsk”, like when an elder shames a child about some mischief that the kid got into. The word “rake” has multiple meanings as well. It’s, of course, rake, as in a leaf or garden rake. It can also be understood as the male version of a siren. Sirens are the Greek mythological creatures who flung themselves into the sea after a hero named Odysseus was able to pass them by on his journeys by surviving their singing as he had himself tied to the mast of his ship. Sirens, as contemporarily understood, are female seducers who few are unable to pass by without being hypnotized by their beauty. I like how I unwittingly made a shadow effect for some of the black lines due to the oil transfer copy I traced on to the surface of the original drawing.
Art of eVan 