Animal Art | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

December 3, 2019June 11, 2024

Corgi in the Wild

It’s been a while since I’ve made any new work. Life has been difficult for a number of reasons these days, and as a result, I’ve had to put my art on hold. Luckily my time has freed up a bit lately, and I felt a need to dive back into art-making. I figured what better way to get back into my creative routine than by making a collage of one of my favorite types of dog?

Anyway, stay tuned for more art. Previously I used to make something new just about every month. I’m thinking that I’ll alter this frequency a bit as I start exploring different creative outlets. After all, a big part of being an artist is exploring and experimenting with different ways of being creative. It’s good to change things up.

April 18, 2019June 11, 2024

The Distracted Pit Bull

Life has been a little hectic and chaotic for me lately, so I haven’t had a chance to make that much new artwork. However, I still managed to find some time. This is a commission that I completed the other day for a friend from high school. I used a pretty limited color palette for this piece, which was challenging and fun in it’s own way. I tried to incorporate a decent amount of texture in the background as well as for the dog. This collage was also a challenge in the sense that the dog’s head is tilted at an unusual angle. Anyway, I enjoyed tackling this pet portrait of a dog from Peru.

November 19, 2018June 11, 2024

Lab Puppy

I’m continuing to work on my dog series. This time, I thought I’d incorporate a lot more texture with the dog’s face. Usually I use more solid colors for the dog portraits, while saving all the texture for the background. It was fun changing things up for this piece.

November 7, 2018June 11, 2024

Feeling Husky

I’ve decided to revisit dog portraits, to tackle a series of different dog breeds. Over the years I’ve had a tendency of tackling the same sort of dog portraits, and I’d like to study a few different types this time around.

I enjoyed collaging this Husky collage. It was my first time collaging a Husky, and I enjoyed working with the shadows for the dog’s eyes and incorporating bits of texture.

July 30, 2018June 11, 2024

The Serious Cheetah

I’ve taken a short break from my dessert-inspired collages to return to one of my favorite subjects, animals. This time I thought I’d tackle something I’ve never collaged before, a cheetah. I enjoyed working on the patterned background, as well as cutting out all the intricate shapes for the cheetah’s spots and whiskers.

After completing this piece, I realized that there’s a pattern with the color palettes I use. A lot of my animal pieces use oranges and greens. I suppose I’m drawn to the color green when it comes to the background for my compositions. And I’m looking forward to experimenting with something a little new for my next pieces.

January 12, 2018June 11, 2024

Collie

I haven’t explored collaging different dog breeds all that much, so the other day I figured I’d tackle a Collie portrait. I decided to use a simplified background with a warmer green, to create more of a contrast between the Collie and the background. I worked in bits of texture as well as solid colors, and I like how this dog seems to be smiling.

It’s always good to explore different ways to tackle a medium. Sometimes I like to work with more patterns and textures in the magazine strips I use, while other times I like to focus mainly on solid colors. Other times I have no idea what direction I’ll lean towards, and that element of surprise is all the more reason why I continue to make collages.

December 15, 2017June 11, 2024

The Smiling Koala

The other day, I wanted to get started on a new collage. I’ve been thinking that I really need to revisit still life, portraiture, or landscapes again since I’ve been focusing primarily on animals. But then I remembered how much fun it is to make animal collages, so I decided to tackle a koala collage again.

Working on this little guy wasn’t easy. I found myself realizing that koalas are pretty strange looking creatures – they look almost like mice with their rounded ears, and their noses are quite unique and unusual. I think I just haven’t really studied the features of a koala all that much, and realized that I was getting tripped up over the details in their quirky characteristics. Eventually I was able to layer the magazine strips in such a way that I was satisfied with the result. This piece is done…for now.

November 15, 2017June 19, 2024

The Contemporary Unicorn

I’ve always thought rhinos were fascinating animals. They look like aliens in many ways, and for that reason, I thought I’d focus on their peculiar appearance when naming this piece. And sometimes you just want to have fun when titling your work!

I also wanted to play around with layers, so this collage has more obvious layers than my usual work. Typically my collages are pretty flat, while this one is raised in different sections. I think I’ll try to focus more on layers and texture for my next few pieces.

September 29, 2017June 5, 2024

The Colorful Parrot

Lately I’ve been using more solid colors in my collages, so this time around, I wanted to mix in more textures. You can see that I’ve still used bits and pieces of solid colors, however the background consists of fragments of images of the outdoors, while the blue feathers and beak have a little more texture or patterns when compared to other areas of the collage. For the blue, I stumbled upon a blue tile-like pattern, and figured I’d see how it would look when I incorporated it into the piece. Sometimes I never know how a specific texture or pattern will work out until I layer it down on my artwork. I can always peel back layers if they don’t work out, so the process is always somewhat of a journey.

This piece was inspired by one of the many visits I’ve made to a zoo. Zoos are the easiest way for me to see exotic animals in-person, where I can take lots of pictures to later use as references for my artwork.

August 28, 2017June 5, 2024

Slow and Steady

I’m drawn to making animal collages because I love how much variety there is when it comes to animals. They come in so many shapes and sizes. Each species has its own expressive quality and personality with whatever shape and form they take.

As a child, I used to be a bit of a nature kid. I loved animals, loved reading about them, visiting them at the zoo, and buying knick-knacks and souvenirs of them. I used to spend hours playing outside, playing games with my imagination where there were always some sort of animals present. And I suppose today, the way I stay in touch with that part of childhood, is by continuing to create different images and depictions of animals in my artwork.

This turtle collage is another example of how I’m continuing to explore compositions of different animals, as I continue to play with texture and solid colors to construct each image. For the background, you can see that I used fragments of images that had clouds and terrain in them. For the turtle, I focused on various solid greens, and made sure the shell had fragments of texture from images of street signs and shrubbery. Overall, I had fun making this piece – at times it was a bit of a struggle, but I’m happy everything got pieced together in the end.