Victoria Hannah

Hi! I’m Victoria and until 2020 I was a Designer/Couture Patternmaker in Sydney, my life was totally consumed by fashion but it eventually began to eat me alive. I had been thinking about going back to England, where I'd lived from the mid1980/90s for a number of years so, I made a decision and left Australia at the end of September 2020. I now live in southern England for the second time in my life...we'll see how it goes!

I'm now concentrating on my first loves of art, surface pattern design, working primarily in watercolour, and writing. I've also just published my first class for Skillshare...I do hope I can be a success before I become a bag lady on the streets.

Actually, I worked with watercolour in art classes at school in Auckland and found the capricious nature of it nearly drove me to lunacy. I naively thought fashion design and patternmaking was an easier path! I was one of two top students in Art and Written comprehension but on the other end of the spectrum, I was one of two bottom students of my class in Maths...Fashion and Art' guess what they both require?

Artistically, I’m so inspired by three wonderful books I was given as a child, they are still so valuable to me, emotionally and physically. Their whimsical and quirky illustrations blend together joy, love and the all-important humour.

Born Free and Living Free by Joy Adamson. These books set me on a path of undying fanaticsm for cats...the bigger the better and I realised a dream of working with lions, tigers, wolves and my absolute favourites, cheetahs, in 2010 in Bloemfontein, Africa. I love all animals, except slithery ones, but my love of cats is beyond insane.

Rupert Bear by Alfred Bestall. The scenes of Rupert’s house with leadlight windows and snow falling outside were always something I wanted to experience. Auckland was never going to see snow and when I finally lived in England for seven years in the1980s/90s those scenes came to fruition for me. Utter magic!

Caroline and Her Friends by Pierre Probst. This book has the most enchanting illustrations of Caroline travelling around Europe with her anthropomorphic animal friends. The facial expressions on all the characters inject laughter in me every single time I pick up this wonderful book.

Iyengar yoga and walking are my favourite forms of exercise, my bones can't take any more running these days...too many injuries! Architecture, Astronomy and Astrophotography obsess me although I am a scaredy-cat about the dark.