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

April 29, 2022June 9, 2024

Alexis Rose

I haven’t been as active with making new art these days, but I am making an effort to make at least one new collage every month. What’s been going on? Well, I’ve picked up a couple of other time-consuming hobbies (like training for half marathons), which has made it a little more difficult to be as productive.

However, I’m currently focusing on a Schitt’s Creek portrait series, and this Alexis Rose portrait is the second one I’ve completed thus far. I haven’t done too many portraits these days, so I’m having fun with tackling a subject matter that’s pretty challenging for me at the moment. Hopefully the more I make these, the easier it will get. I’ve been pretty rusty, but it feels good every time I complete a new one.

March 31, 2022June 9, 2024

David Rose

Life has been hectic lately – I’ve shifted my focus on some of my other interests, so I haven’t been as active with my art-making. I picked up running recently, and have spent a great deal of time training for upcoming races.

However, I’m still planning to at least make one new collage per month this year. I completed this piece just the other night. It’s inspired by the show Schitt’s Creek, and I’m hoping to do more portraits of other characters soon. I started off with a portrait of David since he’s one of my favorite’s on the show. This portrait was definitely a bit of a struggle, and if you were to see it in-person, you’d notice that some sections have been built up with more layers than others. That’s a common occurrence when I’m struggling with a particular subject matter.

The tricky thing about making a portrait of a well known figure, is that it’s very easy to screw up the details and have the portrait not actually look like the person it’s supposed to be. I’m hoping that by picking up portraiture again, this process can only get easier over time.

February 2, 2022June 8, 2024

The Distinguished Penguin

The name for this collage was inspired by one of my viewers during one of the live sessions I had while piecing together this penguin the other day. The viewer said that the penguin looked like a distinguished gentleman, and I couldn’t help but laugh – thus I had to include the word “distinguished” in the title.

I’ve only completed a few penguin collages over the years, and it has been a while since the last time I completed one, so I was long overdue with making another one. Lately I’ve been on a kick with making these animal portraits. A few of my followers mentioned the other day that they didn’t realize that I did other compositions besides animal pieces, and that’s making me realize that I should probably tackle people portraits once more. They may take longer to complete, but it would be good to get back into it again.

January 18, 2022June 8, 2024

Later Alligator

It’s a new year, and I’ve decided to do my best to maintain more of a balance in my life. This time last year, I had already completed several new works of art, and then felt somewhat burnt out the rest of the year. So this year, I’m going to aim to complete about one new work of art every month so I can ensure that I’m pacing myself. And this is the collage I tackled for this month.

I’ve only ever created one other alligator collage, and it was a commission that was completed years ago. It’s fun to see how my style has changed over the years, while certain elements have remained the same. The challenge with this new alligator collage, was working on the scaly texture, as well as the teeth since this piece was one of my smaller sizes. Overall, I was pleased with the finished product and enjoyed tackling a new challenge.

December 26, 2021June 9, 2024

The Colorful Conure

I had a lot of fun working on this commission the other day – it was my first time working on a custom bird pet portrait. Generally I get requests for dog portraits, and every once in a while, a cat portrait, but I hadn’t worked on a pet conure portrait before. The client supplied several reference photos and let me know which photo should be the main reference. This portrait was made as a Christmas gift for the daughter of my client, who actually studied my art in school.

The detailing for this piece was pretty intricate since I had to cut some extremely small pieces of paper. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed working on incorporating a lot of fragments of texture as well as solid color into this piece. I live streamed most of my process, and it was fun chatting with my followers as I worked on the details.

December 23, 2021June 9, 2024

The Happy Panda

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on a panda portrait, so I decided to tackle this collage while running my live streaming sessions. With this particular piece, I wanted to play around with using warm and cool colors for the shadows. I think generally I would have approached this collage by using different shades of gray for the shadowing, so it was fun to change things up a bit with this one.

Since this piece is only 5″x7″, it was especially challenging when it came to working on the detailing of the panda’s face. The eyes, nose, and mouth, all required cutting out very tiny magazine cutouts. Overall, this collage was a bit of a challenge to work on, most likely because the sketch was a little rough and thus I didn’t plan out the overall composition very well. However, eventually I got to a place where I could call the collage finished. It’s nice to work on a composition where it is a bit of a struggle, since it helps me appreciate it more when a collage flows together easily.

December 6, 2021June 9, 2024

Alamance Winter

The other month my alma mater, Elon University, reached out to me about making a custom work of art that they could feature on their holiday cards as well as print in their calendars for donors. They sent me a reference photograph that I used to create an original collage made entirely from magazine cutouts. In addition to creating a composition similar to the reference photo, they also requested that the sky be a starry one.

It had been a while since I’d tackled a cityscape collage, and working on the intricate details of the building, which required cutting and pasting very small pieces of paper, was a challenging project. I enjoyed working on the intricacies involved with the snow-covered tree branches, as well as finding fragments of paper that could make up the starry sky.

Overall, I was pleased with the collage and very happy to hear that the university’s president really liked the artwork. It was a lot of fun working on a custom work of art for the school where I went for undergrad.

November 28, 2021June 9, 2024

Eye of the Tiger

It’s been a while since I’ve made something new – life has been pretty busy these days. A couple of months ago I moved to Manhattan, and moving can be a bit hectic. Aside from that, I’ve been getting organized with my life and exploring other ways to be creative. I’ve been making these collages for years, and although I enjoy the visual art process, sometimes it’s helpful to take breaks from my art so I can revisit the medium again later with a renewed appreciation for it.

So after a couple months away from art-making, I decided to get back into the groove of things by working on this tiger portrait. I had a lot of fun working on this, and I just about live streamed the entire process. Lately that’s been my go-to when I comes to making art. It’s fun chatting to viewers as I’m working on a work in progress.

July 20, 2021June 9, 2024

Don’t Lose Your Head

And I’m back at it with my anatomy series. This was yet another challenging yet interesting piece to work on. Again, I live streamed my process from beginning to end, and I really enjoyed focusing on using a more colorful background. This was my first time working on a skull made entirely from magazine cutouts, and a lot of the detailing (as well as the outline of the skull) proved to be a bit of a challenge. I like to work with scissors, and often times when I’m cutting extremely small and thin pieces of paper, it can be a little difficult to cut and adhere the pieces to the support – usually because they can easily stick to your fingers.

July 16, 2021July 16, 2021

Our House in the Middle of Our Street

The other day I completed a new custom art order. It has been a while since I’ve done a landscape/cityscape collage, and this piece surprised me by coming together pretty easily. Perhaps I need to start exploring landscapes more?

These days it really does feel like there’s never enough time in the day to complete all the things I want to do. But no matter what, I’m extremely grateful that I get to practice my craft every week 🙂 Stay tuned…more art and more variety of art will be posted in the future.