bird | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

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.

February 1, 2021June 9, 2024

The Serious Flamingo

I decided to take a break from still life and anatomy pieces and worked on completing this flamingo piece the other night. This was another collage I worked on while live streaming my process. I’m having a lot of fun answering viewer questions while I work. I also previously made three other flamingo collages, and since all of them have sold, I figured I might as well tackle this subject once again.

I focused more on using solid colors for this one, while mixing in a few fragments of texture. Sometimes I feel a need to incorporate more patterns and textures into my pieces, but for this one, I was more interested in mixing solid colors of pink.

January 17, 2021June 5, 2024

Hummingbird in the Woods

One of my art followers suggest I make a hummingbird collage. I made one last year that sold pretty quickly, so I figured I’d make another one this year. For this one, I focused on using fragments of trees from a few images so that the background would have a more uniform look. I enjoyed mixing a little texture for the hummingbird and decided to outline the bird to make it more visible since the background is more complex than what I typically do.

January 7, 2021June 10, 2024

Orange Conure

This was my first time tackling a conure collage (although I shared the second one I completed first). This was yet another piece I worked on while live streaming, and it was a challenge to juggle working on the piece while answering questions about my work. This took a tad longer than I expected since I kept reworking sections of the conure’s body. I wanted to get a good balance of solid colors and textures.

This piece was also the first of two conure collages that I completed this month.

January 6, 2021June 10, 2024

Conor the Green Conure

I couldn’t help myself with giving this piece an amusing name. This was yet another collage that I made while live streaming my process. This one was a bit easier to put together than the first conure collage that I made, and I enjoyed mixing in quite a few textures. This piece has fragments of pictures of grass as well as green tinted photographs from ads and some other interesting green patterns I pulled from magazine ads.

July 1, 2020June 10, 2024

Hummingbird

I keep trying to work on a different subject, but I’m consistently drawn back to animals. What can I say? I think animals are more exciting to make time lapse videos of. This was an especially fun collage to make since it was my first attempt at making a hummingbird.

May 26, 2020June 10, 2024

Owl Be Back

This past weekend I worked on a couple of new collages where I filmed the process so I could put together more time lapse videos. I’ve always liked owls, so I decided to make another Barn Owl collage. I also couldn’t help myself with using a pun for the name of this piece 🙂

Filming my process has helped me set more of a schedule for working on my artwork. I like how I can share how I’ve tackled various subjects with my technique. I’m thinking that up next, I’ll make a few still life pieces, since I’ve worked on so many animal portraits.

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.

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.

August 11, 2014June 17, 2024

Inquisitive Birdy

After completing a few still life collages, I just had to change things up a bit and make another animal collage. This piece was inspired by one of my strolls in a park in Chicago. A bird flew over to where I was sitting and got pretty close to me. So I had to take out my camera and take a quick snapshot.

I had fun tackling this piece, and I think that I may return to making another animal series. It all really depends on what inspires me when I start sketching a few more possible pieces.