VictoriaSuppan

Hi, I am a professional artist and tattoo artist in Switzerland (the French-speaking part) I joined Swap-Bot to keep up with freedom in creativity - I find doing art as a job can be a bit too narrow sometimes. Check out my website if you want to see what I make.

I am a huge Nature lover. There is no end to admiring flowers, plants, animals, landscapes, the night sky, rivers and waterfalls... I am currently studying Druidry with OBOD, which has much inspired me in the last two years.

In a nutshell, I like anything from nature, nature related, art related, handmade, and I would prefer my swap partner to have fun making something they enjoy rather than trying to fit my tastes. I love surprises! I'm not much into glitter unless it's high quality metallic inks or paints, or real gilding. Not a fan of kawaii stuff, but why not. As I said, surprise me! The rest of my profile is a lot of fluff, read on if you have time to spare :)

I love - really love music. Very eclectic, here's why: My dad had a huge record collection and had me listen to lots of classical music with him. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Brahms, Debussy, Dvorjak... baroque music, romantic, classical, renaissance, medieval... I love'em all!

On the other hand my mum had more modern records, so I also really enjoy Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Abba (yes, I do), Queen, The Beatles, folk music.

As a teenager, I had many musician friends, mostly in rock bands - I would have loved to learn bass guitar, drums and saxophone back then. But I was tied to piano lessons.

Now that I am free to choose for myself, I play the handpan (or hangdrum), drums, and trying out digeridoo. I would love to play the harp, but that is another investment in time and money... one day, maybe.

The music I most listen to these days : Pink Floyd, Wardruna, Heilung, handpan music (Kabeçao, Yatao, ..) Gorillaz, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tool, Archive, electronic music (Ajja, Mose, Samaya ...) Arvo Pärt, Jordi Savall, Shpongle, Ozric Tentacles, ... Yes, I am eclectic :D

Books... another love in my life. In fact I can not talk about favourite books and not mention my favourite artists and illustrators. I am fluent in English and French, so many authors and artists have French names.

I was brought up on Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings), Enid Blyton (The Faraway Tree), CS Lewis (Narnia), Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), James Clavell (Shogun, Tai Pan), Jean M. Auel (Clan of the Cavebear), Anne McCaffrey (Chronicles of Pern), James Gurney (Dinatopia) ...

Considering fiction, I enjoy Haruki Murakami, Stefan Plateau, Alain Damasio, Ursula Le Guin, Brom, Frank Herbert, Robin Hobb, Marie Brennan, Elisabeth Vonarburg, HP Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick ... I am always on the lookout for a good read.

I have a nice collection of art books, that I buy compulsively : John Howe, HR Giger, art nouveau style, steampunk, fantasy art collections (I used to play Magic the Gathering) Leonara Carrington, José Roosevelt, Julien Delval, Brom, Todd Lockwood, James Gurney, Nils Udo, Hainard, Mucha, Jesper Ejsing, Chuck Sperry, Hokusai, Didier Graffet. I have many more, but it would take up too much space.

In the middle between fiction and artbooks, I just love graphic novels : Enki Bilal, Jodorowsky, Roosevelt, Gregory Manchess, Nicolas Fructus, James Gurney, Krum, ...

And books about exploration, maps, other cultures, artefacts, sacred geometry, plants, nature, Celtic culture, philosophy, crystals, runes, tarot, origami, calligraphy...

Movies, well yes, I have some favorites : Cloud Atlas, The Matrix, V for Vendetta (the Wachowskis) Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Howl's moving Castle, The Wind Rises (Hayao Myazaki) The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson) Alien films (Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet - i think the James Cameron one is too much of an action film for my taste) Blade runner (Ridley Scott) and Blade runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) Arrival (Denis Villeneuve) Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) The City of Lost Children, Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro) Shutter Island, The Irishman (Martin Scorsese) Memento, Inception, Interstellar, the Batman films (Christopher Nolan) Back to the Future trilogy - still makes me laugh (Robert Zemekis)

As I mentioned, I am a professional artist and tattoo artist. My favourite crafts are drawing, painting and putting ink under skin with lots of tiny needles. I love exploring and learning new things all the time. Before becoming an artist full time, I worked in textile design (the technical part of making fabric, not drawing patterns or making clothes). I had access to so much fabric, so many kinds of yarn, samples... So I taught myself to sew, to knit, dye raw fabric with plants. I moved on to be a landscape gardener and designer, where I learned a lot about garden design, plants, trees, ecology and so on.

But I finally got called back to art. I took some online classes and irl workshops, and I'm still on a learning curve to making better art. I keep a sketchbook, and like collecting items to put into my cabinet of curiosities. (skulls, insects, pressed leaves and flowers, stones, crystals,...)

I'm currently exploring origami (kusudama), painting with egg tempera, and of course crafting for swaps.

I hope this was helpful, let me know if you need any more details (but I think I went into detail already). Looking forward to swapping with you!