By Jesper Ejsing

I just came back from a Magic Grand Prix in Bologna, Italy. a fantastic city and it was a pleasure to once again hang out with the fabulous Karl Kopinski. I brought my oldest son to the tournament. At the middle of the hall, there was a painting performance area. We had one hour to start a painting, a break and then one hour more to finish it. When I saw the size of the canvas, I was thinking: no way to fill this in and hour”, but I settled on an image of a dwarf, thinking that the beard could cover most of the space. I sketched it up in a marker and added some grey tones. Then I asked my son to add the first wash of Brown Umber and we were good to go on the colours. Once again I fell back into my comfort zone: Red and Light Purple Violet. ( my safe haven, my happy place )

We went to lunch and returned to add details and rim light.

Karl and I decided to do a collaboration the next day. We did a goblin-like dude. It is a super experience to both draw and paint with someone on the same drawing. “Can you fix the eye, I made a mess?”, “is it okay if I make the nose longer?” we drew back and forth over each others lines until the image was neither one or the others style. It was really strange to see areas where you felt at home and you started painting on an element you clearly remembered doing and then to notice stuff the other one did to it. It is refreshing to have another artists take on elements within something you think is yours, only to see how much better it could be.

We had some help once again from our kids. The got the big brushes and did the first washes

Karl Kopinski and Eva, Asbjørn and me