Cam.I.Am

... and obviously I've been watching to much of The Voice ;)

Hi all, I'm Carmen otherwise known as "whoopidoo" in most of the places I frequent online. It's a name I chose when I first discovered the internet and it just kind of stuck. Nothing deep and meaningful in it - I just used to say "well, whoopidoo" quite a lot... in quite an annoying fashion to whoever I was saying it to.

I was always into art and craft as a child but we parted ways for various reason when I was 19.   Fast forward to my late twenties, a few horrible experiences, blah, blah, blah... it all came down to my Mum dragging me to an evening art class to get me out of a funk I was in. I haven't looked back since. I'm 35 now and I just wish she could've seen what she did for me.

I adore and I guess you could say most of my inspiration comes from  folk tales, mythology, legend, fantasy, horror... but I'm picky - it has to be monster horror and not humans mutilating humans, can't stomach that. Zombies, vampires, ghosties - yeah, that's all good. Slasher flicks. No, no. Total wimp out.

Oh and Alice Cooper. He's the only man I goth up for - otherwise I'm pretty boring in my jeans and paint splattered tee's.

I love Mixed Media, Drawing, Painting and I occasionally drag the sewing machine out and (try to) wibbly wobbly sew something. My style is most definitely grungy. I'm not a fan of pastel colours.

Journal page from the free Art, Heart & Healing class on Willowing.

Favourite materials at the moment are: Watercolour pencils and crayons, Copic pens, Watercolour and Acrylic paint, anything that can be ripped up and glued down... postage stamps with lovely art work on. (I'm hoarding my Dracula and Frankenstein ones at the moment as well as a few with bats on.) Sketchbooks, I accumulate sketchbooks at an alarming rate, it's an addiction. I'm not much of a slave to rubber stamps but am drawn to ones of skulls, flourishes, text or crows and ravens.

I love reading as much as I love art & craft and my blog, whoopidoo...ings, is a bit of a mish mash of book reviews and whatever I'm dabbling in. Plus a LOT of rambly waffle but I think you probably guessed that much by now.

Going to stop talking now and just show you a few of my favourite bits and pieces...

One of the ways I have been making sure I create every day is to do a kind of visual journal in one of my sketchbooks, what I wore that day, what I saw, what I'm reading. If nowt else it gets me practising my drawing. 

Mini canvas 

"Be like a flower & turn your face to the sun"

This is one of my older things I've made but one of my all time favourites. It's a set of glass coasters that I altered to fit in the Labyrinth theme. It was for an 80's Fantasy Film swap and one of the few things I wish I'd made two of.

That's me :) Thanks for reading.