still life | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

August 21, 2018June 11, 2024

Have a Bite? Donut Mind if I do!

There’s just something sweet about making artwork that has sprinkles. I had fun coming up with the title for this piece, as well as cutting out all those tiny pieces for the sprinkles. You can see that the pieces of paper for the donut, as well as the plate, involved a lot of tiny pieces that were layered in such a way that the fragments of paper were almost blended together.

The background consists of one texture I found in the background of a magazine ad. I also layered a little bit of solid color on top of the background, to help with shadowing. Overall, I had some fun depicting a donut that had a bite taken out of it.

June 17, 2018June 11, 2024

Cupcake Time

I’m having a sweet time making all these dessert collages. With this piece, I enjoyed incorporating more texture for the background, cupcake base, and the cherry on top. However, this collage was more of a struggle for me – I felt like I was overworking the surface for the frosting.

If you take a look at the collage in-person, you’ll notice that some parts are built up more with quite a few layers of paper. Whenever there’s more paper layered in a particular area for me, it means that I was struggling with getting a certain section looking the way I wanted it to. Although, that’s making me think that it could be interesting to build up different areas on purpose to see what happens.

May 24, 2018May 25, 2018

Indian Ink Drawing of Blocks from College

I was an art major in college, and part of our curriculum was to take a couple of studio drawing classes. This Indian ink drawing was a piece I completed for one of those courses.

Back in college, still life always seemed to be a bowl of the same plastic fruit that had been in the art department for years. Occasionally other objects were thrown in, although usually I was pretty bored with the subjects we tackled. For this piece, I thought it was pretty unique that we drew from a block arrangement. Using Indian ink made the composition even more interesting, since we had to focus closely on the variations in contrast for the highlights and shadows.

May 20, 2018June 11, 2024

My Piece of the Pie (Lemon Meringue)

Lemon meringue pie is my favorite type of pie, so I just had to make a collage of it. Getting the texture for the top of the pie was the most challenging part of this piece. I had a lot of fun using different yellows for the filling, and of course creating some abstract shadows on the plate.

I’m really enjoying tackling different desserts for my new still life series. I suppose previously when I tried to approach still life, I often got bored since I kept tackling floral arrangements. When you try to approach different subjects, it can really change things up, and make something that you typical found too ordinary, much more exciting. I’m planning to create a few more pieces for this series before I tackle another type of food for my still life work.

February 25, 2018June 5, 2024

A Piece of Cake

I had a lot of fun working on this collage, and I’ve been getting a lot of joy from working on my latest series of minimalist desserts. I think I was previously focusing too much on animal portraits, and having more change in my routine helps get the creativity flowing. I’m planning to make a few more pieces for this series before changing gears again. It’s been fun trying to find new ways to sharpen my collage-making skills.

This piece of cake was pieced together rather smoothly. I think the most difficult part was trying to get the coloring for the background to work the way I wanted it to. Initially it was a more vibrant pink, although I wanted to find colors that were more subdued so that the cake itself would stand out more. You can also see that I focused more on finding solid colors from the magazine strips I layered, with only a few bits of texture.

February 14, 2018June 5, 2024

You’re Pretty Sweet

If you’ve followed my blog, you’ve probably noticed that the vast majority of my work focuses on wildlife. I’ve always had an affinity to animals, and I suppose that’s why time and time again, I’ve been drawn to making animal collages. However, lately I’ve wanted to change things up a bit. So right now I’m tackling a series of minimalist still life work, that explores various desserts.

At some point I’ll want to explore other aspects of still life compositions, but for now, I’m going to keep it sweet with my focus on sweets.

January 24, 2018June 5, 2024

Donut Worry

Over the past few months, I’ve made animal collage after animal collage. Animals have always been a favorite subject of mine, but I’m realizing that I need to change things up a bit more, and focus on other subjects that I’m not as comfortable with.

Still life has always been a subject that I haven’t enjoyed tackling all that much, and I’ve had a tendency of avoiding it or not trying to see how I can make it more interesting. As an artist, if I truly want to grow and develop my skills in new ways, it’s best to get out of my comfort zone so I can see what happens.

This piece is the start of a series of food collages. First, I’m focusing on desserts where I plan to use more of a minimalist composition. And of course, I had to include a pun in the title for this piece. After all, donut worry, be happy 🙂

January 11, 2018January 11, 2018

Flower Color Pencil Drawing from College

Color Pencil Flower Drawing from College

Back in college, I kept a sketchbook for one of my painting classes. My professor was adamant that we worked in our sketchbooks on a weekly basis (at least). As a result, I sometimes added quick doodles when I wanted to get these sketches “out of the way.” Sometimes I surprised myself with how my quick drawings turned out. Perhaps I should take up sketching again? I think it’s a pretty great way to brainstorm creative ideas.

October 19, 2017October 20, 2017

Hat Oil Painting from College

I made this textured oil painting back when I was a junior in college. This was part of my studio work as a painting major, and I was trying to tackle a still life and make it interesting for myself. I remember I used to try to avoid making still life works of art because I didn’t think they were very exciting. These days I’m more interested in tackling still life when it involves food of some sort.

I used my palette knife for the vast majority of this painting. You can see a lot of texture in the background, and I actually layered quite a few layers of paint for sections of the hat as well.

August 24, 2017August 24, 2017

Bell Pepper Oil Painting Series from College

Before I started focusing extensively on making collage art, I was a painter. I studied painting back in college, and during my freshman year, I had an assignment to create a still life series that used a different technique for each painting. I decided to make a series of bell peppers, and my first painting (pictured above), was meant to mimic the style of Vincent van Gogh.

My next painting focused on only using the complimentary colors orange and blue.

The next piece in the series used arbitrary color. Blue is actually one of my favorite colors, so it was only fitting that I used blue for this particular piece.

And lastly, I made a painting using more natural colors. I decided to make the piece look flatter so I could simplify the overall composition even more.