In the Studio: Original Art | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

March 8, 2023June 8, 2024

Capybara

The other day I decided to work on a capybara collage, inspired by a trending song that’s been going around online. I never realized how tricky it is to make a capybara portrait. At times, it felt like this collage just looked like a blob, so I had to make an effort to focus on the texture of the capybara’s fur as well as the shadows and highlights on it’s face and body. At first the water consisted of a number of fragments of photographs of water from magazines, but they didn’t look very cohesive, so I ended up collaging the texture of water from only a couple of similar images. Overall, this was a fun yet challenging animal portrait, and quite a bit different than the types of animals I’ve collaged in the past.

February 28, 2023June 8, 2024

Michael Scott

Lately I’ve been pretty busy with a number of things outside of art-making. This year I’m planning to run the NYC marathon, along with a couple of half marathons, so life has consisted of a lot of running and working out. Thus this month I didn’t get around to completing many collages. “Michael Scott” is the only collage that I completed this month, and it was inspired by The Office. I’m planning to make a few more portraits in this series, although my next piece will be an animal portrait inspired by a song that I heard the other day.

Portraiture continues to be a challenge for me, but I’m determined to get to a place where I’m as comfortable making portraits as I am with animal portraits. We shall see how long that takes…

January 31, 2023June 8, 2024

Wednesday Addams

The challenge with portraiture is getting the likeness of the subject down properly. The past couple of months I’ve been focusing on portraiture, and I definitely feel rusty with this type of work. It also hasn’t come easy, so I’m doing my best these days to strive to improve and get better as an artist, especially with subjects that are a struggle. I’m looking forward to continuing to improve and get faster at this type of work (at the moment it’s slow going).

This portrait of Wednesday was inspired by the new show on Netflix. Lately I’ve been inspired to make illustrations of well known figures from the media, and I’m having a lot of fun exploring different characters. It’s been fun creating my own version of these characters.

January 24, 2023June 8, 2024

Nancy Wheeler

This is the tenth portrait I’ve completed in my Stranger Things-inspired collage series. I’ve really enjoyed illustrating a number of characters from the show, and now I’m ready to move on to a new series. I’ll have to revisit this one in the future to add more characters, but for now, this is the final piece.

I had a lot of fun with this portrait and managed to complete it over the course of a few days. I’m a little surprised at how many portraits I’ve managed to complete this month. Life outside of art has been pretty busy, so I’m doing my best to make time for art. And again, this collage involved using fragments of images of jeans for her jacket, as well as fragments of photographs of hair for her hair. I also used the same texture for the background that I’ve been using for a number of the portraits in this series. The remainder of the piece involved layering a variety of solid colors.

And now I’m off to sketch out a portrait for my next collage…

January 16, 2023June 8, 2024

Steve Harrington

I’m getting closer to finishing up my Stranger Things inspired portrait series for the time being. I’m planning to make one more piece, before I set this series aside for a little bit. I recently completed this collage this past weekend. Again, I focused more on using solid colors. Even though this collage came together relatively quickly (when compared to other portraits in the series), it felt like it was a bit of a struggle.

I suppose that’s why they call art a “practice.” I’m constantly practicing my craft. In many ways my collages never truly feel finished, since I’m constantly striving to improve and grow with my work.

January 5, 2023June 8, 2024

Erica Sinclair

It’s a New Year, which means it’s time for some new art. This is the first collage I’ve completed this year, and I’m still working my way through my Stranger Things collage portrait series. I think I’ll do at least three more before I move on to another series.

I had a lot of fun working on this piece. Erica is one of my favorite characters and I enjoyed working primarily with solid colors to complete this one – focusing a lot on different shadows and highlights. I especially like her colorful outfit.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a happy holiday! I’m looking forward to another year filled with art-making and adventure.

December 4, 2022June 8, 2024

Maxine “Max” Mayfield

Max Mayfield collage portrait by Megan Coyle

As requested, I tackled Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) for the next collage in my Stranger Things portrait series. This piece came together relatively easily, even though the sketch wasn’t entirely accurate. Often times I find myself working on reshaping areas of the subject’s features by layering magazine cutouts, especially when the sketch is really simple.

I enjoyed incorporating a little bit of texture for this piece with the stripes in her shirt and fragments of red hair from various magazine ads. Again, I used similar texture for the background that I’ve used for the other portraits. And I continued to use quite a few solid colors for her shirt and face.

Up next, I’m planning to make a portrait of Lucas Sinclair’s sister, Erica.

November 22, 2022June 8, 2024

Will Byers

Another day, another portrait completed in my Stranger Things series. “Will Byers” is now the sixth portrait I’ve made for the series, although this one didn’t come together that smoothly. Portraiture continues to be a bit of a struggle for me, but hopefully the more I practice it, the more I’ll approve.

This piece involved a few more patterns and textures from magazine pages than my previous pieces used, especially when it came to the flannel pattern for Will’s shirt. When this was a work in progress, there was a bit of struggle and reworking of the shape of Will’s face, but eventually I shaped it in such a way that I felt I could deem the portrait complete.

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.