After six months of hard work, I am overjoyed to finally present my illustration for 2024’s Year of the Dragon:
THE BIKE WON’T KILL YOU (IT MAKES YOU STRONGER)
This piece was a labour of many loves. My love for dragons, my love for trees, my love for the mountains and volcanos of Deschutes National Forest, and my love for the bikes that take me there. The bike there is my very own Trek Remedy, and while I’ve never literally flown on it, we’ve come pretty darn close. In the background is the North Fork of Tumalo Creek, and beyond that, Moon Mountain, Ball Butte, Broken Top, and Broken Hand (from left to right)—an area that holds some of my favorite trails. Even though it’s taken me half the year, it was fun getting to start this in the depths of winter, when all my trails were buried under snow and ice, and as the piece progressed, my trails emerged until at the end I was riding in the same place I was drawing!
The title for this piece came from a man who suffered a cardiac arrest 20 years ago. My mom met him because her bike commute coincides with his rides. He told her his story, and how it took a lot of convincing for his doctors to clear him to ride his bike again. But he told her “the bike won’t kill you!” And while I’m not a fan of the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” in this case I feel that is 100% accurate.
(Don’t come at me with cyclist fatalities from vehicular collisions: those bikes are innocent! It’s the cars that kill people.)
Many thanks go out to my CSA family, whose support enables me to work on heartfelt projects such as these. Antellonian members will be receiving a copy of this print in thanks for their additional support. If you’d like to support my work and get goodies like this and so much more, consider joining the team! Fellow Explorers get to see Work-In-Progress updates on projects such as this, along with sketch posts, audio stories, and more! Antellonians get all that, and in addition receive copies of every physical item I produce.
Now go forth and have a great ride!
G