Inkubate @ Harbour Lights, 29th March – 24th April 2019

Join me on Friday 29th March from 7pm to celebrate the opening night of an exhibition of new ink and watercolour illustrations inspired by my garden, chickens, eggs, the creative process and self exploration…


Live painting at The Art House Cafe, 6/11/18

I was invited to paint a table at The Art House in Southampton last night along with another local artist, Dave Hubble. It was also a chance for me to deliver a recent commission to the cafe – a series of butterfly and caterpillar watercolours that are being used for the different reward tiers on their Patreon page.


Evening Workshops in 2018: Drawing, Watercolours, Papercutting and Sewing


‘Lighten Up’: A Solo Exhibition at the Harbour Lights Cinema, Southampton, January 2018

So excited to have 37! pieces of work up at the Habour Lights Picture House Cinema in Southampton for the whole of January…including 11 brand new pieces.

Originals and prints are available to purchase, just contact me by emailing caroline@daffillustration.com to place and order.

See the full online gallery here.


‘True Story’, Exhibtion @ Mettricks Woolston Waterside from 31/7/17

I am very pleased to announce that a solo exhibition of my major project is up at Mettricks Woolston Waterside until the end of September when it will move to Mettricks Guildhall. You can see all the illustrations for the show in the Daff Gallery as well as pictures of the limited edition box sets of prints and posters that are available to purchase now.


‘A Summer of Love’ at Portsmouth Guildhall, 20/3/17 – 21/6/17

‘A Summer of Love’

You can see all the illustrations here in the Daff Gallery

An exhibition of illustrations by Caroline Misselbrook, celebrating generations of her family’s love of nature and creativity.

To mark the 50th birthday of the Summer of Love in San Francisco, the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) at the University of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Cultural Trust (PCT) invited CCI students to submit a proposal to showcase new creative work as part of our ongoing exhibition programme to enrich the visual and cultural experience of visitors to the Guildhall.

The aim is to offer students and alumni an opportunity to showcase their work to a broad public audience, developing their professional creative practice. For this exhibition students submitted proposals responding to the theme: ‘Summer of Love’.

The selected student was Caroline Misselbrook, an MA Illustration student at the School of Art and Design, who was awarded £250 towards materials and display. This show will be part of a series of Summer of Love celebrations in Portsmouth. Talks, exhibitions, performances, film screenings, live music and other events will shine a spotlight on the history and legacy of the sixties counterculture.

The selection panel looked for creative excellence, originality in response to the theme and clear method of display. The judges were Simon Brooks (Interim Dean of CCI Faculty), Andy Grays (CEO of Portsmouth Cultural Trust), Eva Balogh and Oliver Gruner (Art & Design Visual Culture), Tony Spencer (Aspex Gallery Manager) and Denise Callender (CCI Faculty Promotions Manager).

In this series of 10 illustrations, Caroline gives a new lease of life to the birds from her father’s egg collection, which he started as a child in the 1950’s during walks in the Westwood Local Nature Reserve and along Weston Shore in Southampton.

While organising the box Caroline found a complete copy of the Daily Express from 1961 underneath the sawdust. Adverts and articles form part of the watercolour and ink illustrations and highlight the juxtaposition of animals that continued to live happily around us while we focused on our materialistic lifestyles and had unhealthy expectations of men and women. It was this post war culture in the U.S, Canada and Europe that eventually lead to hippies or ‘flower children’ during the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967, rejecting these consumerist values and turning to art, religious or meditative practice and politics.

Caroline accentuates the expressions and characteristics of each bird to create satirical and humorous illustrations. These artworks challenge the audience to ask whether values reflected in a newspaper from over 50 years ago have really evolved, or have they just become more deeply ingrained in everything we read and watch?

Richard Louv’s book ‘The Nature Principle’ in which he discusses his theory of ‘nature deficit disorder’ has been a key source of inspiration for this project. He believes that stepping away from screens to discover and appreciate the wonders of our ‘nearby nature’ can improve wellbeing and creativity. This exhibition is a celebration of the variety of birds within the haven of the Westwood and Weston Shore, which is less than 4 miles from the bustle of Southampton city center.

‘Creative Block’ by Danielle Krysa helped to inspire a daily challenge called ‘Blockvember’, leading to the development of a more distinctive and expressive style. Caroline describes her choice of media as a natural progression towards materials that forced her away from a safety net of precision and perfectionism. Ink and watercolours are difficult to control and embracing mistakes, drips and splashes gives the composition a more dynamic quality.

The series closes with a photograph of the artist’s father and his mother. Caroline’s grandmother raised a family centered on creativity and a love of nature. She continued to watch the birds outside her window until she passed away in January.

 


‘Cell-Division Evolution, how have we come to be?’: Exhibition at Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth

The Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth are exhibiting some of my work as part of this season’s craft exhibition which asks…Does Making Things Make Us Human? It opens this Saturday (15th September) and closes on the 16th October. Go and take a look around!

“Tessa Metcalfe, Caroline Misselbrook, Mel Grant, Carrie Dickens, Sherry Doyal: This exhibition continues to explore the question aspex is asking- Does Making Things Make Us Human? Cell-Division is a showcase of contemporary fine-craft and design. Evolution, how have we come to be? The artist featured in this exhibition all respond to specific parts of the evolutionary chain, often through observations of texture and aesthetic. The artists involved have created work that reflects a plethora of different forms of life, as well as looking at the building blocks behind what makes up life, the world and everything.”

http://www.aspex.org.uk/

For more photographs of the exhibition click here


Portsmouth University Illustration Degree Show 2012

A brilliant private view on Friday evening for Portsmouth University Illustration Degree Show! Photographs to come very soon. The exhibition will be open to the public from Wednesday 6th – Wednesday 13th June, 10am-4pm (closed Saturday and Sunday). A selection of my work is on sale at the exhibition, including my ‘Solar System’ box sets and ‘Cambrian Explosion’ lino print books. Any questions please feel free to get in touch.


Welcome to Daff Illustration

This is the new website for Daff Illustration. It contains information ‘about Daff’ and an online portfolio containing works which use processeses including laser cutting, print making, drawing and handmade books. ‘Daff news will keep you up to date with events and new illustrative projects and ‘Daff downloads’ are coming soon so watch this space.