Portraiture | Megan Coyle: Artist & Illustrator

November 22, 2022November 22, 2022

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, 2022November 2, 2022

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, 2022October 12, 2022

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.

September 22, 2022September 22, 2022

Lucas Sinclair

I had so much fun working on this portrait of Lucas Sinclair (played by Caleb McLaughlin) that was inspired by the series, Stranger Things. This is the third collage I’ve completed in a series of portraits inspired by the show. While working on this piece, I ended up reworking his jacket so it would have more texture in it instead of consisting of only solid shapes of color.

I also managed to complete this portrait within a few days. The overall composition came together quickly, which is not always the case with my portraits. The piece I did of Eddie Munson was actually more of a struggle, while that wasn’t really the case with this one.

September 16, 2022September 16, 2022

Eddie Munson

Portraiture is definitely a challenge for me, but I’m having a ton of fun working with improving on it. This piece is the second portrait I’ve completed in my “Stranger Things” series, and “Eddie Munson” was a top request that I received from my followers online. I’m looking forward to working on the other characters in the future. I also figured working on this series during the fall was very fitting with Halloween coming up.

Again, I wanted the background to look dark and reminiscent of the Upside Down, and again I used fragments from images of jeans for Eddie’s jean jacket (similar to what I did for the portrait of Eleven). For his hair, I used fragments of images of hair in magazines. This portrait took a little more time than the portrait of Eleven since I was really focused on getting all the shadows and highlights down properly.

September 12, 2022September 12, 2022

Eleven

“Eleven” is a portrait that I completed a few weeks ago right after I binge-watched the fourth season of Stranger Things. If you aren’t familiar with the show, Eleven is one of the main characters and I wanted her to be the first portrait completed in this series. Then I continued to work on finishing up my Schitt’s Creek series before I wanted to revisit this series to work on more characters. This particular piece was completed over a weekend, and I wanted the background to be somewhat reminiscent of the Upside Down. I also cut up images of jeans for her jean jacket.

And stay tuned, I’ll have more portraits of characters from this show being posted soon. Again, portraiture is definitely a struggle for me, but hopefully the more I make them, the easier they’ll get.

August 29, 2022September 12, 2022

Twyla Sands

The other night, I finished the eighth portrait in my Schitt’s Creek portrait series. This will be my final portrait for now, however, I may revisit the series in the future to add a few more characters. For the last piece, I figured I’d tackle a portrait of Twyla so I’d have a portrait of each of the Levy’s that starred in the show.

Working on this series was a lot of fun. Some portraits turned out better than others, although that’s only to be expected when you’re feeling rusty with a particular subject matter. Or actually, that’s only to be expected with art in general. Some works of art you’ll really like, while others, not so much.

So, what’s next? I’m planning to work on another series inspired by another favorite TV show of mine. So stay tuned for some more portraiture 🙂

August 2, 2022August 2, 2022

Patrick Brewer

I only have one more portrait to go (for now) in my Schitt’s Creek series. Working on Patrick Brewer’s portrait was a lot of fun. I did a little bit of live streaming for this piece, but for the most part tried to work on it here and there. I ended up using more solid colors than I expected to, but that’s just how my process goes sometimes. Sometimes, my work seems to have a mind of its own…

In other news, I may be a little slow to create new art in the upcoming weeks. I’ve been going through a couple of personal issues right now, so I may need to dedicate a little more time than usual to self care and a different sort of routine. But don’t worry, I’ll be back at being an art-making machine soon enough 🙂

June 19, 2022August 2, 2022

Ted Mullens

And the sixth portrait in my Schitt’s Creek series is complete. I have two more portraits that I want to complete for this series before I shift to another portrait series, but I may revisit Schitt’s Creek again to make collages of more characters at a future time.

This piece was a bit of a struggle for me. I thought I was getting the hang of portraiture again after being rusty for a while, but I kept struggling with getting the shaping down right. Also, his facial hair changed a few times before I was able to get it in a good place. Sometimes the creative process can take a while…

June 3, 2022September 12, 2022

Stevie Budd

The fifth portrait in my Schitt’s Creek series is now complete. In this picture, Stevie’s shirt looks a little more neutral than the actual piece looks like in real life – it’s actually a little redder. And when I started off with this portrait, my sketch was pretty rough, so I had to work on reshaping a lot of Stevie’s features with magazine cutouts to get things looking the way I wanted them to.

I’m excited to continue this series with about three more portraits. It’s been fun diving back into portraiture and exploring getting the likeness of different figures. It’s been challenging, but it’s also been a lot of fun.