Ever since Margaret Organ-Kean burst onto the Magic: The Gathering scene in 1994's Antiquities by creating the artwork for the card Martyrs of Korlis, she has created a good number of iconic pieces of artwork for the game.
And, as one might expect, there are a key few from among the 26 pieces of artwork that she has done for the game that she says stand out more than all of the others.
"Some of my favorite paintings have been from those first few releases such as Hipparion which I have always liked," says Organ-Kean. "I think it's my best card that I did."
The reason for that, she told Magic Untapped, was because it shows the exact point in time during the act of summoning a creature that it goes from one realm to another.
"You see creatures summoned from summer to winter," she points out.
In fact, her artwork for the 5th Edition printing of Hipparion got the attention of a Harvard paleontologist a number of years back who sent her an email about it.
"She had been very pleased by these because the hipparions looked like hipparions," explains Organ-Kean. "They're actually a collaborative relative of the horse from earlier on in the line. The horse didn't descend from them, but they're equine."
WATCH: MAGIC ARTIST MARGARET ORGAN-KEAN TALKS ABOUT HER FAVORITE MTG ART PIECES
Another of her favorites she's done for the game is one that is quite familiar with players of MTG's Legacy format: Lion's Eye Diamond.
"I was working on it for Mirage and I was not having any luck," she says. "I could not get a sketch worth diddly-squat."
That all changed, she said, one evening when she decided to try yet again on a new sketch.
"And I thought that's good, I'll send that in" and I was still feeling pretty hyper about it, so I thought I could just start a little water color on it," tells Organ-Kean. "And at eight o'clock the next morning I finished it."
She says it's the only piece that she can say for certain just how long it took her to complete.
A third piece of Magic art that Organ-Kean created that stands out to her is Autumn Willow. It's a card that her friend and fellow MTG artist, Kaja Foglio, was the model for.
"Kaja's been a model for me for a couple of other pictures, too," she says. "I find her facial features very congenial."
While the most recent printing of her art was on the Time Spiral timeshifted card, Sacred Mesa (which itself was a reprint of a card from Mirage), Organ-Kean can be found at various Magic: The Gathering conventions and shows signing autographs, altering cards, and meeting with her fans.
