North Texas Daily

When the pandemic hit, the world was not ready for what was to come. Staying indoors in the midst of everything was difficult for many, and having nowhere to go and nothing to do was a new experience. However, this inspired interior design senior Morgan Evonne Brown to create something special to her.  

Originally from Fort Worth, Brown created MEB Designs after a full semester of remote learning. MEB Designs consists of Brown’s well-known faceless portraits as well as her portfolio which was done in the past.      

“I was just bored and couldn’t go anywhere, so I started to draw out one of my pictures and I posted it somewhere and a lot of people were interested,” Brown said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I have free time, I can do other photos too,’ so I just started doing that and more and more people were interested. It was just a fun way to express myself and keep myself occupied.” 

Brown primarily uses Procreate on her iPad to create all of her faceless portraits. She said the higher the resolution of the reference photo, the better it will turn out to be, especially when getting all the small intricate details. Typically, it takes anywhere between one to five hours, depending on how many people are in the photo and how detailed they are.  

“The client will send in the photo, and I will put it into Procreate and use it as a reference and will just start drawing it in,” Brown said. “It’s fun to play with the different colors and the different contrast you can do. I will send it to them and they will give me any tweaks that they want or I’ll add some customizable things and then get their approval.”   

Fort Worth resident Sarah Chapman contacted Brown in November 2020 to create a faceless portrait of herself with her dog, Milo. Chapman has known Brown since high school and said she always admired her creativity, confidence and ability to express herself. 

Chapman said Brown responded quickly to her request and was amazed by how stunning the art turned out to be.    

“I absolutely loved everything about the piece she sent me,” Chapman said. “She included several variations with different background colors so I’d have one to frame for my apartment and another to use as my Instagram profile picture. She even sent me a time lapse of her entire process, which was amazing to see. I love how she uses minimalistic design but still manages to capture all the important details of her subjects.”   

Although requests for her faceless portraits have slowed down, Brown said around Christmas she was receiving at least five requests for artwork per week. Now, people request her faceless portraits to gift to friends who just got married, for Valentine’s Day or other special occasions.  

Sarah-Grace Closuit, MEB Designs customer and Fort Worth resident, received a faceless portrait for Christmas and immediately asked her friend where she got it. Closuit wanted to gift similar pieces to her family and friends for Valentine’s Day, so she contacted Brown around the end of January. After roughly two weeks, she got the first draft back and loved it. 

“She was willing to make any changes and she was so easy to work with,” Closuit said. “She was also open to altering the size of the image for printing.”  

Aside from creating faceless portraits, Brown has also come to love laser art, and credits her interest to her major because of the 3D models in her coursework. Brown hopes that MEB Designs will be a  jack of all trades for different mediums of art once she graduates.

“Right now, I’m working while I’m going to school and I’m hoping that while I’m just working, I’ll have more time to put more energy into it,” Brown said. “So for the future, I think I’ll like to focus more on the laser art but I’d still be taking commissions for the prints, because it’s a fun thing to just put on a Netflix show and just do.”  

Those interested in viewing Brown’s work can visit her website, mebdesigns.com.

Featured Image: Interior design senior Morgan Evonne Brown works on a commission at the Union terrace on Feb. 26, 2021. Image by Maria Crane