commission work | 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.

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.

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.

December 28, 2020June 10, 2024

The Happy Bernedoodle

This piece was the second one of two commissioned pet portraits of bernedoodles that I completed recently – and this one was of a dog named Ace. This piece was a lot easier to tackle than the other one, but that may have been because I was feeling a little rusty with dog portraits until after I completed the portrait of Addi. Ace’s sketch was also much closer to the composition of the final portrait, which also helped a great deal. I especially enjoyed working on Ace’s portrait since he looks so happy, it’s hard not to smile when you see an upbeat expression like that.

If you’r interested in purchasing my custom art, you can learn more about the commission process here.

December 27, 2020June 10, 2024

The Playful Bernedoodle

This piece was one of two commissioned pet portraits of bernedoodles that I completed recently – and this one was of a dog named Addi. I had a lot of fun tackling this portrait, and a big part of that was how expressive Addi was in all of the reference photos that I was provided. I initially struggled with this collage since my sketch wasn’t well thought out. I didn’t include the octopus toy in the sketch, and Addi’s paws were posed differently. As a result, I ended up having to rework her paws. I also realized that the shape of her head wasn’t sketched out proportionally, so again I had to work on reshaping that section. This portrait was a good reminder that initial sketches are so helpful for planning a piece, and taking more time in the beginning to get the sketch down right, will save you a lot of time later down the line.

If you’r interested in purchasing my custom art, you can learn more about the commission process here.

September 11, 2020June 10, 2024

Franklin the Cat

Earlier this year I got to work on a cat portrait for a commission. I had a lot of fun tackling this portrait, specifically because one of the reference photos had the cat wearing a cute, striped bowtie. The client was also wonderful to work with.

Over the years I’ve made a number of cat portraits, but usually the custom art orders I receive are dog portraits. It was fun working on something a bit different as far as my custom artwork goes.

April 18, 2019June 11, 2024

The Distracted Pit Bull

Life has been a little hectic and chaotic for me lately, so I haven’t had a chance to make that much new artwork. However, I still managed to find some time. This is a commission that I completed the other day for a friend from high school. I used a pretty limited color palette for this piece, which was challenging and fun in it’s own way. I tried to incorporate a decent amount of texture in the background as well as for the dog. This collage was also a challenge in the sense that the dog’s head is tilted at an unusual angle. Anyway, I enjoyed tackling this pet portrait of a dog from Peru.

June 8, 2017June 18, 2024

Mark and Sophie

“Mark and Sophie” is a portrait that I was commissioned to make for the wife of a former boss of mine – she wanted to give it to her husband for their anniversary.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a portrait collage, so this piece was definitely a bit of a struggle for me. Usually my collages are relatively flat when you look at the surface – I don’t usually use that many layers. However, for this piece, there are definitely sections where I built up the layers more so than others.

Here’s the sketch that this piece started off with:

You can see that it looks a lot different than the final piece. Sometimes my sketches don’t exactly look the way I want the final product to look, but they do give me an idea of how to block out the entire composition.

Anyway, although this piece was a struggle, eventually all the pieces fell into place. Just goes to show that if you keep at it with something, eventually you can accomplish your goal.

April 3, 2017June 18, 2024

Malachi

Portrait of a Dog by collage artist Megan Coyle — “Malachi” Collage on paper. 9″x12″
Order a print

Animals are one of my favorite subjects to tackle when it comes to piecing together my collages. Here’s a piece where I was commissioned to collage a dog that has two different color eyes. I’m thinking my next couple of collages will involve some more wildlife.

In other news, I’m planning to get started with exploring a couple different mediums. As much as I enjoy making collages, it’s always good to change things up every once in a while.

February 20, 2017June 19, 2024

The Magic of Memories

This is a commission that I completed for an author who lives in California. She wrote a story about a collage artist in the DC area, and she thought it was only fitting to hire me to make a collage inspired by a description from the book. This piece was inspired by a passage that described a work of art created by the fictional artist – a box of memories with light swirling from it. I definitely had a lot of fun creating this piece, especially since it was a little different from what I normally make.