Blog | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

November 2, 2022June 8, 2024

Dustin Henderson

Last night I completed the fifth collage in my Stranger Things portrait series. I had a lot of fun tackling Dustin since he’s got a really unique smile. Again, this portrait felt like a bit of a struggle, but the struggle wasn’t as rough as it was initially. It’s getting a little easier, but not much easier…I also focused on using mainly solid colors for this piece, but continued to use a similar texture for the background that I’ve used for the other portraits in the series.

Up next, I’m planning to make a Will collage. Then I think I’ll have at least four more to make before I’ll deem this series complete for the meantime.

October 12, 2022June 8, 2024

Mike Wheeler

My “Stranger Things” series is slowly coming together. “Mike Wheeler” (played by Finn Wolfhard) is the fourth portrait in the series, and I’m noticing that this one came together somewhat easily when compared to the last three collages. Hopefully that means with more practice, these portraits will only get easier to do.

For this collage, I also live streamed part of the process. I think the initial sketch wasn’t entirely accurate, so a lot of the detailing and shaping came later after I blocked out all of the colors. Again, I primarily used solid colors, with the most texture being implemented with the background and Mike’s hair. I’m definitely looking forward to working on more pieces for this series.

September 22, 2022June 8, 2024

Lucas Sinclair

I had so much fun working on this portrait of Lucas Sinclair (played by Caleb McLaughlin) that was inspired by the series, Stranger Things. This is the third collage I’ve completed in a series of portraits inspired by the show. While working on this piece, I ended up reworking his jacket so it would have more texture in it instead of consisting of only solid shapes of color.

I also managed to complete this portrait within a few days. The overall composition came together quickly, which is not always the case with my portraits. The piece I did of Eddie Munson was actually more of a struggle, while that wasn’t really the case with this one.

September 16, 2022June 8, 2024

Eddie Munson

Portraiture is definitely a challenge for me, but I’m having a ton of fun working with improving on it. This piece is the second portrait I’ve completed in my “Stranger Things” series, and “Eddie Munson” was a top request that I received from my followers online. I’m looking forward to working on the other characters in the future. I also figured working on this series during the fall was very fitting with Halloween coming up.

Again, I wanted the background to look dark and reminiscent of the Upside Down, and again I used fragments from images of jeans for Eddie’s jean jacket (similar to what I did for the portrait of Eleven). For his hair, I used fragments of images of hair in magazines. This portrait took a little more time than the portrait of Eleven since I was really focused on getting all the shadows and highlights down properly.

September 12, 2022June 8, 2024

Eleven

“Eleven” is a portrait that I completed a few weeks ago right after I binge-watched the fourth season of Stranger Things. If you aren’t familiar with the show, Eleven is one of the main characters and I wanted her to be the first portrait completed in this series. Then I continued to work on finishing up my Schitt’s Creek series before I wanted to revisit this series to work on more characters. This particular piece was completed over a weekend, and I wanted the background to be somewhat reminiscent of the Upside Down. I also cut up images of jeans for her jean jacket.

And stay tuned, I’ll have more portraits of characters from this show being posted soon. Again, portraiture is definitely a struggle for me, but hopefully the more I make them, the easier they’ll get.

September 9, 2022June 8, 2024

It’s Corn

Corn collage by artist Megan Coyle — “It’s Corn,” Collage on paper, 5″x7″
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The other day I decided to breakup my flow of working on portraits by creating this still life collage. It was inspired by a song that has been blowing up on social media these days, and I figured I might as well make a collage of corn, film my process a bit, and share my process while playing the song in the background. The most challenging part of this collage was cutting out every little tiny piece of corn and pasting it down. I was alternating between a few different shades of yellow, and I’m pretty pleased with how it looks. The husk is rather simple and the background is really embracing the textures/fragments of photographs that I found, cut, and then layered.

August 29, 2022July 24, 2024

Twyla Sands

The other night, I finished the eighth portrait in my Schitt’s Creek portrait series. This will be my final portrait for now, however, I may revisit the series in the future to add a few more characters. For the last piece, I figured I’d tackle a portrait of Twyla so I’d have a portrait of each of the Levy’s that starred in the show.

Working on this series was a lot of fun. Some portraits turned out better than others, although that’s only to be expected when you’re feeling rusty with a particular subject matter. Or actually, that’s only to be expected with art in general. Some works of art you’ll really like, while others, not so much.

So, what’s next? I’m planning to work on another series inspired by another favorite TV show of mine. So stay tuned for some more portraiture!

August 2, 2022July 24, 2024

Patrick Brewer

I only have one more portrait to go (for now) in my Schitt’s Creek series. Working on Patrick Brewer’s portrait was a lot of fun. I did a little bit of live streaming for this piece, but for the most part tried to work on it here and there. I ended up using more solid colors than I expected to, but that’s just how my process goes sometimes. Sometimes, my work seems to have a mind of its own…

In other news, I may be a little slow to create new art in the upcoming weeks. I’ve been going through a couple of personal issues right now, so I may need to dedicate a little more time than usual to self care and a different sort of routine. But don’t worry, I’ll be back at being an art-making machine soon enough!

July 13, 2022July 13, 2022

Wildlife Collages from East Sussex, England

Wildlife student collage inspired by Megan Coyle

This week I heard from James, a teacher at Newick Primary School in East Sussex, England. His Year 3 class recently did a project about British wildlife, and they made collages inspired by my art. I had so much fun taking a look at their work and thought I’d share a few of the collages. The students did a wonderful job working with texture and solid colors.

You can see that they incorporated fragments of images from magazine pages, especially for the backgrounds. I think it’s really fun to see the mix of fragments of greenery from nature alongside some solid colors and colorful textures for the foreground.

I also loved seeing how the students recreated collages of wildlife like the owl and fox.

It’s so exciting to see the collage work of young artists. I hope these students keep at it, since after all, it’s an amazing feeling to see how much your artwork can grow the more you practice it.

June 19, 2022July 24, 2024

Ted Mullens

And the sixth portrait in my Schitt’s Creek series is complete. I have two more portraits that I want to complete for this series before I shift to another portrait series, but I may revisit Schitt’s Creek again to make collages of more characters at a future time.

This piece was a bit of a struggle for me. I thought I was getting the hang of portraiture again after being rusty for a while, but I kept struggling with getting the shaping down right. Also, his facial hair changed a few times before I was able to get it in a good place. Sometimes the creative process can take a while…