Megan Coyle creates animal collages entirely from magazine strips. Do you know what a collage is? Find out what it is. Coyle’s collages look a lot like paintings because of the way she cuts and glues down paper. Find out more about her process.
While growing up, she constantly visited Smithsonian museums . Now she goes to the Natural History Museum (a science museum) as well as the National Zoo to gather ideas for future works of art.
Coyle likes making artwork of animals because she’s always had a love of animals ever since she was a child. She also likes how there are so many unique animals out there – they come in so many different shapes, sizes, and colors.
Have you studied Coyle’s animal artwork? What did you notice about her work? She has made several collages of exotic animals that are found at the zoo, and you probably noticed that she’s made collages of household pets like cats and dogs. How are her pet and zoo animal collages similar? How are they different?
Overall, Coyle enjoys making animal collages because of all the bright colors she can use. Birds are one of her favorite type of animals to collage because there are so many different colorful species that exist. Take a look at the variety of birds in some of her art:
(Click on one of the images below to view a larger image)
The zoo can be a great source of inspiration because of all the different animals that live there. Also by seeing the animals in person, you’ll have a better idea of what they look like when you begin work on your own artwork. Coyle likes visiting the animals in person because she can take photographs of them. Once she gets home, she can use her photos to help her make drawings of animals before she starts a new collage.
In most of her collages, the animals are more detailed than the setting they’re in. One of the reasons for this is that Coyle uses photographs taken at the zoo, where the landscape is very simple. Once she works on her artwork, the simple scenery from the zoo gets reflected in her work. What did you notice about the backgrounds in her collages?