collage | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

February 7, 2011February 10, 2018

Ryan and His Sweetheart

I like the story behind this collage: Recently the guy who owns the domain megancoyle.com contacted me. I wanted that domain when I first put my website together, but had to settle with megancoyle.com since another Megan Coyle had a site up and running on megancoyle.com. So the owner contacted me, telling me that his client, another Megan, no longer used her website. Thus the web address wasn’t being used and was pointing to an error page, although the owner was still paying money for the domain. So he offered to do a trade – he’d transfer the domain to my account if I made a collage for him.

Above is the collage that I made for him. The challenge with this piece was that it was one of my smaller sized collages, and I wasn’t doing a portrait of one, but two people. I had to cut the magazine strips pretty small, but I’m pleased that it came together in the end.

February 1, 2011February 18, 2017

Experiment 1: Non-Objective Art

These past couple of days I’ve been doing some planning for my workshop in April. Part of my prep work includes coming up with projects that the class will work on and creating my own samples to share with the students. I’ve decided that one technique I’ll share is creating non-objective art with magazine strips. I never create abstract pieces myself, but I decided to give it a go with this small collage.

At the moment, I’m also working on a small portrait piece. I’ll share an image of that collage once it’s complete.

Hope everyone had a happy January! Can’t believe it’s already been 2011 for a month!

January 26, 2011February 10, 2018

Nancy Pelosi

And here’s the finished piece – as you can see it’s much different than the first progress picture. When my client reviewed progress images of this one, she decided she wanted Nancy wearing a dark jacket instead of blue. She also made a few suggestions here and there. Her feedback was pretty helpful with shaping this into a Nancy portrait that looks more like Nancy.

I’m kind of excited about the idea of making a series of political leader collages, especially since I live in the DC area. We shall see how that goes when I get to it…

And now I’m off to work on my children’s book illustrations as well as another portrait for a client. It’s snowing like crazy outside – good weather for staying in and making artwork!

January 7, 2011February 10, 2018

Shelby

Here’s the finished piece. My client gave this collage to his wife as a Christmas gift. I was happy to hear that it was well received. This dog sure looked pretty cute – in all the reference photos the client sent me, Shelby had her tongue hanging out.

Anyway, I’m off to enjoy the weekend. I’m going to work away on my children’s book illustrations – and I must say, it’s pretty difficult being secretive about my book since I’m so used to sharing my progress pictures, etc. The only image from the project I plan to post is the cover art once I’ve finished it. I’m half-way done with the book – can’t wait until it’s finished and ready for print. I’m excited to share it – even though it’s got a ways to go.

November 30, 2010May 3, 2018

Claire

“Claire” is a commissioned portrait that I recently completed and shipped over to a woman in Texas. I have a couple of other commissions at the moment that are going to be given as Christmas gifts by my clients. Thus I’ll refrain from posting images of these projects until the holiday season has passed.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Mine was filled with family get-togethers and lots and lots of food. I didn’t bother with shopping on Black Friday – I think I’ll finish my shopping online so I can avoid the crowds. Anyway, I’m off to try and finish another commission – I’ve decided I won’t work too much on my personal projects until these commission are complete, however I’m anxious to get back to my children’s book illustrations.

Have a great end of November!

November 18, 2010February 10, 2018

Karim’s Father

And here’s the finished piece. You’ll notice that it looks much different than the last progress picture. My client supplied me with a low res photograph taken with a cell phone camera. After a bit of dialogue back and forth between us, the portrait began to change bit by bit as I merged elements from other photographs that the client sent. Eventually, this was the result.

Anyway, I’m off to continue working on another commission – when it rains, it does indeed pour. And sometimes I wish I could clone myself so I could work on all the projects that are on my “to do” list.

October 20, 2010February 18, 2017

Kitty in the City

Had another go at a cat collage. This one sort of fell together, which is always a good sign. I enjoyed putting together this little guy and adding the fragments of images of buildings in the background.

Recently I started watching quite a few animation video tutorials. I’m itching to get started on an animated collage. However, you can’t always do everything at once, so I’ll have to be patient and wait until I have some more free time to devote to a new project. For now, I’m off to work on a commission and a couple of illustrations.

September 28, 2010February 18, 2017

Maine Coon

Another collage from my cat series. Pretty soon I should get started on making more animal collages. Or perhaps I’ll do a series of small coffee cups? We shall see…

This past Saturday I uninstalled “The Animal Kingdom” exhibit at Goodwin House. Time sure does fly – it feels like just the other day I was hauling nearly forty collages over to the gallery and spending the afternoon making sure everything was hanging just so. It had a good run and I’m excited to search for future venues.

And now I’m off to work on another illustration and do a little commission work. I hope everyone had a great weekend. It went by pretty quickly for me – but I kept busy and had fun.

July 27, 2010February 19, 2017

Mr. Kangaroo

This piece was inspired by a trip that I took the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. A lot of my animal collages are inspired by trips to the Natural History Museum when I swing by their animal exhibits – or the National Zoo. I’m really having quite a bit of fun making animal collages – after making so many figurative pieces earlier this year, it’s definitely a nice change of pace.

I’m beginning a lot of exhibition prep work for the animal exhibition that goes up this coming Sunday, August 1st. My “to do” list includes framing all the artwork, preparing an artist talk, and getting together all my postcards, business cards, etc. to set out during the show. We shall see how it goes…

July 23, 2010February 19, 2017

Pelicans

Inspired by a walk through the National Zoo – these two pelicans were swimming about in the seal exhibit. Again you can see I’m drawn to the blues in water. There’s just something that’s really fun about working with reflections in water.

In other news, I was pretty excited today to receive my contract for my solo show at Krempp Gallery in May 2011. It’s in Jasper, Indiana, although I’m planning to take a road trip when the time comes to deliver about twenty to thirty collages for the show. One of my goals this year was to get an exhibit in a gallery from a state that I’m not affiliated with at all and I’m pleased that my work will be off to the Midwest before long.

Anyway, I’m off to work on getting things a little more organized around my room. I’ll be busy with quite a bit planning these next couple of weeks.