Animal Art | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

August 18, 2017June 5, 2024

Golden Girl

I’ve always been a bit of a dog person. I grew up with a dog, and I always appreciate getting to visit my friends who own dogs. This is a piece inspired by one of those furry friends.

If you look closely at the Golden Retriever’s fur, you’ll notice that it looks like the texture of hair. That’s because I cut out fragments of images of blonde hair from models in the magazines I paged through, in order to construct this piece. The background is composed of fragments of landscape scenes, and the nose is made up of a few interesting textures I found.

Overall, I enjoyed making another collage of a grinning dog. Golden Retrievers are such fun dogs, and I’m especially a fan of adorable Golden Retriever puppies.

July 28, 2017June 19, 2024

A Snail’s Life

With this piece, I decided to focus more on using texture. There are a few areas where I used solid color, although for the most part, I wanted to see how I could layer several different textures together. For the snail’s shell, I wanted to outline the shape with solid color so that the shell could stand out more.

This is my first time tackling a snail collage. I think it might be fun to rework this subject with arbitrary color – actually it might be good to play around with colors for a new series. Lately I’ve been making collages that use more realistic colors, so we shall see what I’m able to come up with next.

July 15, 2017June 5, 2024

Mandarin Duck

Birds are always a fun subject to tackle since there are so many different species out there. This particular collage is my first attempt at tackling a mandarin duck in collage form. I love how colorful these ducks are, and I definitely enjoyed piecing this together from so many pieces of bright magazine pages.

If you’ve been following my work lately, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve shared quite a few animal collages. I’m thinking I should probably change gears in a bit and try to tackle portraits or still life sometime soon. We shall see though…animals are always a favorite subject for me, although it is good to break out of your comfort zone every once in a while.

June 14, 2017June 5, 2024

Sea Explorer

When I was growing up, turtles were one of my favorite animals. I remember I had a number of turtle figurines, and even had a turtle jewelry box. But of all the different species of turtle out there, my absolute favorite was the sea turtle. I thought they looked like such elegant creatures.

The other day I decided to piece together my first sea turtle collage, and as I was working on it, I remembered all those years that I was in awe of this creature. I think I should definitely tackle this subject matter again in the future.

June 8, 2017June 18, 2024

Mark and Sophie

“Mark and Sophie” is a portrait that I was commissioned to make for the wife of a former boss of mine – she wanted to give it to her husband for their anniversary.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a portrait collage, so this piece was definitely a bit of a struggle for me. Usually my collages are relatively flat when you look at the surface – I don’t usually use that many layers. However, for this piece, there are definitely sections where I built up the layers more so than others.

Here’s the sketch that this piece started off with:

You can see that it looks a lot different than the final piece. Sometimes my sketches don’t exactly look the way I want the final product to look, but they do give me an idea of how to block out the entire composition.

Anyway, although this piece was a struggle, eventually all the pieces fell into place. Just goes to show that if you keep at it with something, eventually you can accomplish your goal.

May 23, 2017June 5, 2024

Foxy

The other day I had a chance to finally finish a new collage – this fox portrait. I also was able to make another time lapse video, which was a lot of fun to put together:

What’s actually a little amusing is that for the previous time lapse videos I made, I used to sit underneath a tripod that held the video camera, trying with all my might not to bump into it while working on the collage. With this one, I realized I can just film the whole process upside down, then flip it when I edit the video. That way I’m free of working under a tripod. In the future, I’d also like to work on using better lighting for these to make it easier to see my process.

April 3, 2017June 18, 2024

Malachi

Portrait of a Dog by collage artist Megan Coyle — “Malachi” Collage on paper. 9″x12″
Order a print

Animals are one of my favorite subjects to tackle when it comes to piecing together my collages. Here’s a piece where I was commissioned to collage a dog that has two different color eyes. I’m thinking my next couple of collages will involve some more wildlife.

In other news, I’m planning to get started with exploring a couple different mediums. As much as I enjoy making collages, it’s always good to change things up every once in a while.

March 5, 2017June 19, 2024

The Serious Grin of the Eagle

After relaunching my portfolio site, I’ve finally had some time to make some new artwork. This is the first eagle portrait I’ve ever done, and it was interesting tackling an animal portrait after spending so many weeks immersed in coding websites and not making artwork.

The original is available for sale in my online store.

January 13, 2017June 19, 2024

The Wise Lizard

This is the first collage that I’ve actually completed in the New Year. I decided to tackle another animal portrait, and this time focused more on using texture and loose lines.

Lately I’ve become increasingly interested in changing things up with my work. I plan to not only experiment with different collage techniques, but also with different mediums. Stay tuned for more…

December 12, 2016June 19, 2024

Happy as a Corgi

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to make a new work of art – life has been keeping me busy! Earlier this year I went through a coding bootcamp, and recently I moved to Maryland, so needless to say, life has kept my hands full. However, I finally had a chance to put the finishing touches on this little guy. I definitely plan to start making more collages soon.