These three letters trace an image onto a surface: to draw, to paint, to depict. From the act flows the one who does it (the painter) and the thing produced (the drawing). The same root even pushes inward, so that to "be depicted" becomes how a person or situation comes across. A heads-up: the consonants צ-י-ר collide with a second root, צ-ו-ר (to besiege, to form), and with the noun צִיר (hinge, axis, envoy). Those are cousins, not the family below. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
This root lives mainly in the active pi'el (the deliberate work of making an image) and its reflexive partner hitpa'el. The simple pa'al, the passive pu'al/huf'al and the causative hif'il are not lexicalized here. Note that in hitpa'el the prefix ת shifts to hitzt- before the emphatic צ, a regular sound rule.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.