Announcing "The Unselfie Project", on Kickstarter!

Well Hello there!

In addition to having this brand spankin' new beautiful website, I want to share some exciting news!  After 5 months of hard work, and with the help of some good friends and the super talented folks at Primer, I’m THRILLED to announce the launch of my very first Kickstarter campaign, “The Unselfie Project”.

I have 30 days, starting May 1st to reach my goal and I really everyone's help in order for my project to be a success.  Please, take a few minutes to watch the video and share my link! And I hope that you might even back the project!  Every little bit will help the Unselfie Project to become a success and I am super grateful for your help!

 Let’s do it!

Thank you so very much,
Michele

Look out America, Behemoth is coming!

I just finished this illustration of Nergal, frontman of extreme metal band, Behemoth. With a brand new record, "The Satanist", they have been playing sold out shows in Europe. Lookout America, we are next! The US Metal Alliance tour begins this week. See them, before they see YOU!

Nergal from Behemoth

My sketches on Nergal’s Facebook page.

Over the weekend, I did these quickie sketches of Adam “Nergal” Darski, of polish extreme metal band, “Behemoth”. You may or may not know who he is, you may or may not like the kind of music that he plays and his point of view, but you cannot deny that he has an interesting story. He is a poster child for freedom of speech and thought (years of court woes in Poland over a blashpemy charge that was later dropped), a leukemia survivor, a bone marrow center charitable benefactor, as well as front man for what is probably the leading extreme metal band in the world at the moment.

I found reference of him online and sketched a range of different expressions posting them to my sketchbook online here as well as to my Instagram account. Just for the heck of it, I tagged both Nergal and the Behemoth band Instagram accounts when doing so. Lo and behold, the next day I received a message from Nergal, asking I would send them to him and if he could post to his Facebook. Of course I agreed, how could I not? I really didn’t expect him to see them, but he liked them enough to email me and post them to his official Facebook page, so that was really cool.
Thanks Nergal!
See you when you come to Philly in April.

PS – If anyone wants to follow me on Instagram, my user name is michelemelcherillustration. Thanks!

BRB...

Stuff has been percolating in the studio and I’ve been too busy to post. There’s a huge project that’s in the works that’s going to need some “audience participation” and I will let y’all know when it’s live! We are in the middle of a nor’easter right now, so I best strap my snow shoes back on and get back in the studio. Really, I don’t have snow shoes, and my studio is in the upstairs of my house but the latter makes for a more romantic image, no?

Introducing “Squeak of the Week”

As you know from my last post, I’ve re-decorated the studio and have since been crafting a carefully curated collection of interesting things to put in it.  Over the weekend we happened upon a local antique shop that I had never been in. We came across this really awesome antique black walnut carved wood accent shelf. I am in love with it. It reminds me of the old german carved cuckoo clocks and it kind of makes me dream of sporting pigtails, leiderhosen  and drinking a tall pint of hefeweizen.

Anyway, I scored a great price on it with the dealer (50% off yeah!), and knew right away that it would sit on the wall right above my computer. Brian suggested that I display my squeak toys on it. In his words, “a triumphant squeak toy”.  A different one every week. And “Squeak of the Week” was born.

Every week, I will post a different vintage squeak toy from my collection. I have many. A few years worth, give or take a week. And they are all different. This will be fun! Follow along on my Instagram #michelemelcherillustration and on Tumblr at Squeak of the Week . ENJOY!