Bonny Snowdon 00:07
Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon, ex-corporate person, a mother turned successful artist-entrepreneur. It wasn't that long ago though that I lacked the confidence, vision and support network to focus on growing my dream business. Fast forward past many life curveballs, waves of self-doubt and so many lessons learned and you'll see Ignite, my thriving online colour pencil artists community, a community that changes members' lives for the better and gives me freedom to live abundantly whilst doing what I love and spending quality time with my beloved family and dogs, all whilst creating my best artwork with coloured pencils, and mentoring others to do the same. But this life wasn't always how it was for me, it used to only exist in my imagination. I've created the It's a Bonny Old Life podcast to help increase people's confidence, share mine and my communities experience and hope through fascinating personal stories, champion the other amazing humans in my personal, professional and membership community, and create another channel through which I can support others to realize their dreams. If you're a passionate colour pencil artist or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work, and a joyful life you love, you're in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, and let's get cracking. I've been following my next guest for quite a long time, actually and we've had a few discussions and conversations via Instagram lives and we've had a Zoom call back in lockdown as well and she is a very, very inspirational lady, I have to say. Her work is beautiful. But it's her lovely outlook on life that I really like. She's quite philosophical. She's very articulate, incredibly kind and again, really, really generous with her with her knowledge and her time and my chat with her was really lovely actually. So, really, really glad to be introducing Julie Burdon-Stone. Oh dear, it's so nice to see you.
Julie Burdon Stone 02:02
And yeah, lovely to see you. Lovely to talk to you as well, this is lovely.
Bonny Snowdon 02:08
We did talk before, though, didn't we? I mean, we had unlimited chat on your Instagram as well.
Julie Burdon Stone 02:17
Yeah, I know. We have a chat last 2020 I think it was. We had a chat when I started watching your YouTube channel and I contacted you and you said, oh, give me a ring and we had a chat.
Bonny Snowdon 02:34
Gosh, that's a long time ago, isn't it?
Julie Burdon Stone 02:36
It seems like an age ago now. Lots of water has gone under the bridge since then but yes.
Bonny Snowdon 02:41
I know, goodness. When you think back over the last couple of years, you just think oh, my word?
Julie Burdon Stone 02:48
I know. I mean, I was in quite a bad place when we chatted. I was having a very bad year particularly and that kind of it really helped, actually. So, you look back on life and you think, oh, that was bad. But life moves on and things get better. Yeah.
Bonny Snowdon 03:10
I mean, your business is going really well, isn't it? I'm loving what you're doing on your Instagram.
Julie Burdon Stone 03:17
Yeah, it's busy, busy. I've got lots of ideas. I have got a plan. But my plan is sort of evolves as time has gone on, it's evolved. Because I thought I knew what I wanted to do and then I've changed quite a few times since then. I think that has a lot to do with my preferences, and to what I know that I'm good at and what my attention span is like, and what I enjoy and all of that. So, because I'm still working as well at the moment. So, I'm effectively run in two full-time jobs at the moment, which is a huge commitment. So, when I go back into it because I've done art professionally full time before and I did an awful lot of commissions and I worked to design briefs and it was quite intense and quite fast-paced and I think that that's one of the reasons why with my art now I wanted that level of creative freedom that I've never had before because I wanted to do the things that I wanted to do and explore that really in more depth. But at the moment, it's a bit onerous, because there's this huge amount of work involved and as I say, I'm working effectively two full-time jobs because I've got quite a full-on job four days a week, and then I've got my full-on art, which takes most of my spare time and every evening as well.
Bonny Snowdon 04:49
What is the thing for your other full-time job?
Julie Burdon Stone 04:52
So, for my other full-time job, I work in a senior management position at large animal charity. Art and animals have always been flimflamming a lot. I always was going to be an artist, and for various reasons left art college and went off to work in a zoo, like you do and then I met my husband.
Bonny Snowdon 05:18
In zoo?
Julie Burdon Stone 05:20
Yeah, I mean, he was very supportive and wanted me to go back to the art, which he supported me to do that and I worked as a freelancer for quite a few years. I designed all sorts of giftware and I designed cross-stitch pictures and all sorts of things. It was all very, very creative stuff, but always with the design brief and always with someone else driving what they wanted and then dogs have always played a huge part in my life and I have a dog who died and I went to a local animal charity to for a dog and I started volunteering there and I got really interested in animal behaviour and in no time at all, I was spending more time there than I was actually working. I was having to come home and work till two o'clock in the morning, still, my design briefs and things and I knew I had to make a decision because I was being torn in two. So, I went off to work for an animal charity, and I worked my way up through. It got very corporate in the end and it was very burning out really and I mean, it was a very large charity and, as I say, it's very, very corporate and in the end, I got made redundant, which, at the time, I was devastated. But actually, it was probably the best thing that happened to me, to be honest, and then I had that year off, where you and I spoke. I'd always painted because for my mental well-being, I have to do it. I've always had to paint. So, all throughout my whole career, I've always painted and I started to gather momentum and doing things that I'd wanted to do with that and then I got a job to go back into animal charity work. At the time, do I do this or do I pursue my art, but it was in the middle of COVID and I really wasn't in a good place, I don't think at the time. I think my confidence had taken a hit with everything that has happened. So, I did go back and that's what I'm doing now. But I'm in a really good place now and I'm glad I went back because I have been able to use all my knowledge and experience in a really positive way. But at the same time, it's really consolidated in my head where I want to be with my art. So, I have a plan going forward for it. So, a lot of people see it as retiring. I don't see it as retiring, I see it as a next stage in my life, who is going to be when I go all full in the art and at the moment, it's gearing up and it's gearing up and that's what I'm doing. But I'm an all-or-nothing person. So, the charity that I'm working for is still getting all of me when I'm there. But at the moment, it is exhausting, because I am really torn into and I know that that's not sustainable for a long period of time on animals. That's what it is.
Bonny Snowdon 08:28
So, the job you're doing at the moment, as well, with the senior manager level again, is that quite corporate? I think people think of these jobs as being all so lovely to work. But actually, that is the same as any other business, isn't it?
Julie Burdon Stone 08:47
Yeah. So, my mum always used to say, oh, it must be so lovely cuddling cats and kittens and puppies all day and I just used to nod knowingly thinking you have no idea. But the charity that I work in now is much more aligned to my values, I suppose in terms of charitable objectives. So, although I am distanced from the animal side of things, I'm driving, if you like the on the animal operation side of things. It is in a very sort of kind of compassionate values-led organization. So, I feel very happy about that and it is a good fit for my values. But again, I mean, you're right, I mean, charities or businesses like anything else and I think that that's what perhaps a lot of people don't understand how they kind of run in that in that way. Sorry, my dog is scratching the door. I'm just going to [inaudible]. She's blind.
Bonny Snowdon 09:52
Oh, bless her.
Julie Burdon Stone 09:53
She's blind but she's a bit senile. She won't stop once she starts. So, yes, it's a busy life at the moment, and actually, from a business perspective, I've learned an awful lot in my roles that I have done and that's helped enormously and also driving me as a person, because obviously, I definitely went down a different road, I went down the psychology route, animal behaviour route, and I went down and studied an awful lot in terms of human behaviour, animal behaviour, all of those sort of things, which stood me in good stead, really and I'd learned an awful lot about myself, which is the most important thing. I think when you study behaviour, you always reflect internally and I think for me, that was the biggest learning in terms of behaviour. Because I think I've been overthinking, a busy thing all my life and I think that's, in some ways, my lack of confidence, and my lack of self-belief, perhaps is, when I was younger, particularly from my college days, because when I went to art college, I mean, my parents were very supportive and there was never a moment when I was growing up that I wasn't going to be an artist. I never went to careers advisors or anything else, it was always, you're going to be an artist. So, you don't need to bother with that, because that's what you're going to do. So, my whole life had been geared towards going to art college, and I went to art college, and it wasn't anything like I'd expected it to be. It was, feel your way through painting, throw some paint at the wall and be expressive, use big brushes and what I wanted to learn was good draftsmanship, I wanted to learn how to draw, how to compose a picture, I wanted to learn like the old masters painted and that was really out of vogue at that time and I had to have a critique and I put so much work into it everything I did, and I was so conscientious and I remember having this critique and being told that actually, unless I evolved in my technique, then I wasn't going to cut the mustard basically and that they would have to reevaluate whether I could stay on the course. I was devastated. I was completely crushed. Because I felt I'd let my parents down. I thought I'd let myself down. I really took what they said on board. So, I thought, what else am I good at? What else can I do? I thought, well, I like animals. I can work in a zoo. So, I left art college and my parents were like, what are you doing? You're leaving art college. Why are you doing this? You're mad. I went off to work in a zoo and the last day of art college, one of the tutors came up to me and said, why are you leaving? I told him in floods of tears, of course, because I was very young at the time and he said, they say that to all the people that they want to push, it's their way of pushing you a little bit harder. I thought, well it's a bit late to tell me that now. But obviously, they hadn't really looked at teaching and supporting and coaching in those days. It was a kind of a very old-fashioned way of teaching a very young and vulnerable student. So, off I went to work in a zoo and I worked in a small zoo and then I worked in a larger zoo and then I met my husband who knew that I had missed out on what I should be doing because I was still drawing all the time. I was still painting all the time and he encouraged me. He said, well, you need to do this, you don't need to go to college, you don't need to get a degree you can do this. I mean, he was a businessman and he pushed me in the right direction and that's when I went off and I worked freelance for quite a few years doing it. But I think again constantly working to design briefs, constantly doing what someone else wants you to do, you feel you're on a bit of a conveyor belt for a time and I think when I went to work in animal charity it was a completely different path because I never stopped, ever stopped drawing, never stopped working and I think that the internet has been an absolute godsend really because it enables you to connect with artists all over the world and I used to really try and find work that I really resonated with me, really realism but really good artists that I could really look up to and try and learn from and in North America, at the time there was so many good artists realism in North America was so much more progressive than it was in the UK in the 80s and 90s. But now with the internet birds of a feather, we can flock together, and we can find people who kind of like our work and people who do the kind of work that we do and actually, it's a really breath of fresh air, because you can see people who are super talented, who are smashing it in the art arena and you think, well, that gives you hope then and I found a really good client base, I've found people who support my work, I've found friends, it's been a revelation, really. I feel like I was born sort of 20 or 30 years, a bit too early because the internet has just been amazing. It's an interesting life.
Bonny Snowdon 15:50
It is and it's really lovely actually, to hear. Because I'm of the very same opinion as you is that I really like social media, and I think it's been just a massive, well, it's kind of what's made my business grow. But I think where you and I are very similar is our understanding of ourselves, and the reflection of who we are, because, I guess, you've done the work that I've done. I probably don't understand as much about psychology as you do. But I've been through all of this coaching side of stuff, I've learned about how to really look inside of myself, and understand why do I do this? Why do I do that? And changing things that I don't particularly like about myself. I think that has an absolutely huge effect on how we then present ourselves.
Julie Burdon Stone 16:51
Yeah, I agree. I think you have great insight, actually and I think a lot of the things that you do in the way that you teach shows that you really understand what people need from you. Because I think that just because you know how to do something doesn't necessarily mean say, you're going to be a good teacher, or you're going to be able to put that information across, it's going to make that person feel good about themselves and I think that that's one of the things that I learned quite early on in terms of building people's confidence and encouraging people to be the best version of themselves, not trying to copy somebody else, or not trying to be somebody else and I think that's so important to have that really good foundation. I mean, I'm still a work in progress. I mean it's frustrating sometimes because even though you know what's going on in your head, and you kind of have the manual for it, it still overrides you sometimes, and you still have that little voice in your head and I often think, gosh, if I spoke to somebody the way I speak to myself, I wouldn't be a very nice person.
Bonny Snowdon 17:59
I know. It's actually bizarre what we do. Isn't it bizarre what we do? I've got three days left of a 16-day coaching an NLP course that I'm taking and it has been absolutely fascinating and we were doing a session, not yesterday, but the day before, around metaphors. Now we started talking about metaphors, I'm like, oh, my God, this is just going to blow my mind. I'm not really sure but actually, we talk in metaphors all of the time, all of our conversations are just scattered with metaphors and we all have our own deep-seated way of doing things. Oh, I'm trying to grow my business or I'm trying to skyrocket say all of that kind of stuff and it was really interesting because I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing and I was led through sort of like a guided metaphoric thing and we started off and I always find it much easier to close my eyes so I can visualize stuff. I am a very big visualizer and a feeler and everything. We started off in this big room and then it ended up being this sort of like a wooden pot that I could put bits and pieces in. It was very strange, kind of where I ended up going. It was like you've gone really quite deep into your subconscious and sort of started pulling stuff out. I suddenly went, and I think I actually sort of like put my hands on the table and I was like, oh my god, this my boundaries. I'm talking about my boundaries here and it was like, I've got this pot of boundaries that I could put bits in and take bits out and I always struggle with boundaries. I really struggle with boundaries because I haven't had any and putting them in feels very strange, like a bit of a tearful moment about it and there was like my boundaries are there to keep me safe and I can put whatever I want in them and I can take whatever I want out. People that were listening and going Bonny's gone completely bonkers now, but it was very interesting. My coach, honestly, she was in hysterics when I said this and I was like, I find it really hard to put boundaries into place. I don't know whether you're the same. But when I do, when I have to say no to somebody, I usually leave it too late and then it's kind of gone on a little bit, and somebody's taken advantage on me or whatever and then because I don't know how to properly say no, or whatever, I end up being passive-aggressive, which is horrible and Suzie was in hysterics. She was like, oh, my goodness, Bonny, you're not past it and I was like, no. When I have to say no to somebody, I think this efficient person comes on and I end up being this passive, aggressive, horrible person and it's not what I mean. But it's because I don't know how to say no to certain. I find that really, really hard.
Julie Burdon Stone 20:46
I think my boundaries, it comes from self-preservation, I guess because I've worked in a very emotional environment and it is really, really emotional environment when you work in animal welfare. People feel things and they feel it really, really deeply. I've done a lot of insights and sort of self-reflection. So, I know very much how I operate in a certain environment. So, I know that I can be very driven, and very directive and that's the positive side of it. The downside of that is being bossy. But I also know that I am a very caring person and very compassionate. But the downside of that is I can be very stubborn. So, when I know those two sides of those things, and how I lead in my preferences, I am always very aware of when I'm getting stressed. So, when I'm feeling that I'm very pressured, I can't make decisions on I can get quite stubborn and quite entrenched in a way of working and so with my own work, I know when things aren't flowing in a certain way, or when I'm feeling a certain way, I know something's not working. So, for me, boundaries are really important in protecting my well-being, because if I don't protect my own well-being, then nobody else will basically. So, I think I've got quite I suppose what I call responsibly, selfish, we call it. But I think it has to be sometimes and sometimes that does mean say no, or that, I have a certain amount of hours in a day, and I know what I can give that time to and for me, my art is so important to me, it's an important part of my life and it is part of my identity. So, for me, a lot of my downtime and my time off my evenings are painting. My husband will often say to me, you never stop, you never stop. He said, no wonder you're tired, you never stop. But I think well, I have only got these hours, I've got to make them work, I've got to make them count and I don't actually find art exhausting in that way. What I find is exhausting is all the other stuff that goes on. So, boundaries, I think are important when you are quite a driven person, I think you're a very driven person. Gosh, you must be amazingly driven to have achieved what you've achieved. So, I think it is so important. I don't think we should ever have to apologize for having boundaries at all. I think they're so necessary.
Bonny Snowdon 23:30
Yeah. I mean, I've been working on them and I'm finding it easier. But again, the other side of stuff is when like, like you're saying you're a giving person, you're compassionate, you're kind and then all of a sudden, you have to say no to somebody, and it just feels really, really awful or you have to actually have a conversation with somebody that's not necessarily the lovely, joyful, positive conversation you need to have and that can feel just really, really dreadful. Again, this internal work, I think is so important, particularly when you're either planning to grow a business or you're growing a business. I mean, I do you have quite big goals in my business. Well, I mean, sometimes I'm always made to feel guilty about having these plans and then I'm thinking well, actually, I'm growing a business, I'm sort of quite entrepreneurial, and I shouldn't be made to feel guilty about anything. I really love what I do and it's taken me quite a long time to understand and realize that I do make a difference to people.
Julie Burdon Stone 24:39
Yeah. I think that's really important and I suppose there's only so much of you to go around and that like I said, there's only so many hours in the day and often I think about you quite often so I often listen to your podcasts when I'm driving or whatever and I say, how do you fit in what you fit in? I think I'm a busy person, but then when I talk to you, and I see what you're doing, I think Crickey I feel a bit inadequate. But I think that you have to have those boundaries and that structure to grow your business the way that you need to. There's only one of you and you're producing so much, and also, you're giving so much. But I also know that in terms of social media, for instance, the bigger that your account gets, the more interactions that you get, and I want to interact with all of the people that I can get, and people send me messages and I always try and respond to them and I thought, well, how am I going to do this if I get bigger and more successful with this, because this is a big part of my day that I want to and it takes me away from my painting and I keep thinking I need to make some reels, and all of that, but it only if it feeds the work that I'm doing. So, for me, the work is the most important thing, and that's the centre and everything of what I do is my work and then all the other stuff. That's the nice stuff and that's that supports that and that's really important too. But without the work, it's meaningless.
Bonny Snowdon 26:16
Yeah, absolutely. I think that sounds like a really healthy way of not getting so when you get so bogged down with, I need to be doing this, and I need to be doing that and I think I should be on TikTok and I should be making meals every day and actually, for what benefit? I mean, yes, absolutely, if it's part of what you're wanting to do, but is it just to kind of feed the algorithm so that you get a few more likes? Is that actually making a difference to how many commissions you're getting? Probably not.
Julie Burdon Stone 26:50
Yeah, and it can disappear as quickly as it came. I mean Instagram is not tangible, because we don't own it. It's owned by somebody else who owns all of our kind of data and I've spoken to people who lost their account, their accounts have been hacked, and it's all just come crumbling down, like a pack of cards and I don't want to think well, how would I feel if that happened? Would that really set me back? I would be really upset about it. But I've still got my work, I've still got the thing that's driving the art desire in me. So, I'm doing art, that's the most important thing, and all the other things are supporting it, but I'm not doing the art to generate the other stuff. I think that therein lies the difference and that's why I don't take on huge amounts of commissions. I like commissions, and I really enjoy doing them. But I'm not churning them out one after the other after the other after the other. Because that's not what I want to be doing. I worked in that way before and I know that I will feel stale if I continue to do that. So, for me, it's important I want to grow and I want to develop my skills and my techniques. So, I do a combination of both and they're the things that I kind of post but I still have that creative freedom to be able to do what I want to do and I know where I want to get to with that. So, I feel really, really at peace with that in terms of how I am as an artist, and I look around at other people, and I admire them and I think oh, they're amazing, and I love watching other people's journeys. But that's their journey. That's not my journey and that's okay and I think that that's a good way to be.
Bonny Snowdon 28:39
Oh, definitely. I think that's a really lovely message and we are all very different but I do agree with you. I mean, when I first started out, I think I was doing eight or nine Commission's a month and I loved it, because I didn't have anything else to do. I was literally getting up in the morning, nine o'clock drawing till seen on social media and it was all like, yeah, this is great. But then as your business grows, and then you've got all of that admin side of stuff and then of course, when you start teaching, and you do all of the recording, and then you've got to do all of the editing, and it's like, oh, my goodness, this is like a beast, and then what I'm finding is I like to be inclusive. So, I'll ask people, what do you want? Then they'll come back with a million and one different things and I'm thinking, oh, blimey, I don't make a decision now and I've actually started to almost not give people an option. I'm not even going to give you an option, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do.
Julie Burdon Stone 28:42
Well, I think yes, it's a psychology of choices, isn't it? The more choices you have, then people don't actually make choices. So, you've got to get choices give them a maximum of three.
Bonny Snowdon 29:55
I'm doing a little experiment at the minute. So, I do a lot of joining webinars and things like that of successful business people and listen to podcast, and I was listening to this one podcast and I'm starting to do a series of one-day workshops, which I'm going to be starting quite soon. But I didn't know what subject I'd do it on and you'd normally say, oh, well just put a survey out, ask people what they want to do and then this podcast basically says if you ask people what they want, they'll tell you what they think they want from their voices, but their behaviour is very much different, and their behaviour probably would want something different. So, I've got a series of Facebook ads that are running at the moment that are all different parts of drawing and I think they're running at something like a pound a day or something like that for 30 days and we're just going to see which one gets the most views and for how long, and the one that gets the most views and for how long that is people showing the behaviour of that's actually what they're interested in. So, that's kind of going to give me the subject, then I'll start in my one-day workshops, which I thought was quite an interesting way of thinking about it really using technology and everything to work out what it is that you're going to put in front of people.
Julie Burdon Stone 31:19
That's interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. I mean, I do a little bit of teaching, I do want to on teaching, and I really enjoy that and very often we will just focus on one thing in a lesson to really hone down and seem to get those details. I really enjoy that side of it and teaching was one of the things that I have thought about doing because I've taught in my day job as well. So, I do like teaching. But Patreon, I've looked at Patreon many times, and it's just such a beast of a thing to commit to and that's one of the things is put me off a little bit and the filming side of things.
Bonny Snowdon 32:03
Yes, Patreon, I think is wonderful, and can be incredibly damaging to an awful lot of artists. Because unless you get a really good following, you're putting all of that work in for not very much return. So, unless you do all of your work, and you've got sort of like, I mean, what have I got on Patreon at the minute, 800, 900 on there, it kind of fell when I started the academy because everybody joined the academy. But if there's people earning like 16,000, 17,000, 18,000, that's amazing. At one point, that's what I was earning on Patreon alone. But if you put all of that work in and you only have 10 members or 20 members, you still put all of that work in, but for very little return. You also think it encourages really, really great value for the consumer. I mean, I've got three years’ worth of work on there that you can get for five pounds. We're always trying to say to artists, up your pricing know your value, and all over then sudden, we're encouraged to give a huge amount for not very much at all and it's fine if you've got the masses in there, and you've got lots and lots of people. Then I've been watching, oh, I can't remember his name now. There's another artist, an amazing artist, and he sells his workshops and stuff on his website and you can buy one of his workshops, which is only a portion of whatever it is, but $300. If you want the whole series, you pay $1,000 for it and people will buy it.
Julie Burdon Stone 33:55
Yeah, that's true. I mean I think I'm quite free with my knowledge and I know you have been as well. But there's also that element of that it's taken a long time to put that together and I think if you're going to give really good value for money, then obviously, I think it has to be done in a way that's sustainable for both you and for the consumer. As I say Patreon for me, I've looked at it several times, and I have kind of thought about it. But I think that I would become stale, I think in that churning out because I don't want to manufacture things in that way and I think for you, you probably got onto the platform at the right time and you've got that back catalogue and you've been able to try things and that's what's led to the academy. So, there's been a really clear process that's led to that and I think for you that was probably a very different approach maybe. But for me, I don't think that this point in my career, it's not what I really am thinking of doing. I might do some workshops, I might do some Zoom workshops or things like that, I might do those in the future, I might do a few YouTube just to put things out there to thank people that have supported me. But as I say, for me, the work is still the most important thing and I mean, I've got a beast of a canvas that I've just started to work on, which is a bit scary. But I'd like to do things that scare me a bit, because that energizes me as well. So, yes, it's been sat there staring at me for such a long time, I thought I needed to do it. So, I've just gone ahead and started it, even though I haven't really got the space for it.
Bonny Snowdon 35:50
I can see you're squashed into the corner of the room with this huge canvas.
Julie Burdon Stone 35:57
I have plans for a different studio space this year.
Bonny Snowdon 36:05
So I know quite a few artists who are like, oh, gosh, I can't make a really good living with commissions or original art and I see it on Facebook groups, everything, the only way to do it is to go down the teaching route and in a way, well, I wish I don't think it's true at all and actually you could be the best artist in the world and go down the teaching route but you may not get the following that you want within the teaching, because it isn't just about showing people what to do. It's all of the other stuff in there as well and actually, it is very doable, to be able to make a living from your originals, and your commissions and all of that kind of thing and it is just working out your worth, it's you know, developing yourself all of that kind of thing, and just making sure that you are creating stuff that it's to your value.
Julie Burdon Stone 37:09
Yeah, I think it's a shame when people, they always kind of think that they have to do certain thing in order to make money and I mean, I suppose it's how you define success as well, because we all need money to live, obviously. So, money is an important part of that and, I suppose it depends on what stage of your life you're at, as well and what you feel is a good value for the work that you're producing. But success, I think it means different things to different people. I mean, for me, success means being the best that I can be as an artist, and I won't stop trying until the day I die to be the best that I can be and I know where I want to be and if I was climbing a mountain, I'd probably be at base camp now. Because I know that there's still a long way for me to develop, there is a lot for me to learn and that's exciting, because I'm enjoying the journey, the creative journey and I don't see as an end goal that one day, I'll go, oh, I've reached it. I'm now as I want to be because I think art is a lifelong journey. So, success for me, yes, it's important to sell my work and yes, it's important that I can make money from it, because raw materials are very expensive and I do want to make a living from it and a sustainable living as well going forward. But success also means a lot more to me than just financial money in terms of that. I do think that's what maybe a lot of people perhaps start out with their love of art and then it becomes about the money and then they fall out of love with the thing because very often if you turn a hobby into a means of making money, it's no longer a hobby, it then becomes a work and I've done it before, and that's what I did when I was an illustrator and commissioned artists working before. In a sense, I felt that I was constrained because I didn't have that creative freedom that I wanted. I could produce the things I was really good at working to deadlines but it wasn't what I necessarily wanted to be producing as an artist and it was a job.
Bonny Snowdon 39:33
Yeah. I think a lot of people feel that way and I think a lot of people do go into sort of like commissioned work and everything and then end up going you know what, I just can't do this anymore because I've just totally, I don't want to see another Labrador in my life and it's funny. I mean, I do commissions. I tend to do maybe one or two a month depending on what it is. I've actually done three for free this last month, so they're just presents for people. I've done my brother's little dog and I did my daughter's boyfriend’s dog.
Julie Burdon Stone 40:13
It's lovely. I saw that.
Bonny Snowdon 40:13
Then I did something for my groomer as well. I really like doing stuff for free. I really, really do. Because, I don't know, there's no pressure and the bit that I don't like is you finish it and then you, so I always end up sending about three different emails to the person that I finished the commission to. The first one is I finished it, oh my goodness, I've really loved it. Here's the photo of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and then they come back in the goal. That's so nice and then it's probably a week in between that and when I go, oh, and the balance is this. I'm like, oh god, I've got to ask them for money. I don't have a problem asking for money and I do know my worth. But I think, for my commissions, probably would really like just to go, do you know what, just do it for you. It'd be absolutely fine. But I do enjoy doing the commissioned stuff. But then I wonder, if I was still trying to do nine a month, I don't think I would.
Julie Burdon Stone 41:16
Yeah. I only take commissions, if I know that I can do a good job. So, quite often, I get some photos, I'm sure you all do that you see it can you post a photo of my cats and they'll send you a really bad iPhone picture of it looking down and all you can see is a couple of eyes looking up at you and I used to try my best with those pictures because I wanted to fulfil what people wanted. But now I'll say, well I can't draw your cat, I can draw a black cat and it might look a bit like that cat, but it won't be your cat. Because for me it's about that connection so that when someone sees it, they see that animal looking back at them that there's an essence of that animal in that portrait and unless I can get that connection from the photo, or that emotional response and know that I can give a good interpretation. For me, it's not worth doing it. I would rather not take that commission and I know there are lots of artists that would and do a really good job of it and I think that's great. But for me, I would rather do work I know that I'm going to be really proud of and that I'm going to be able to say, yeah, I've done a really good job, I have done absolutely the best I could do.
Bonny Snowdon 42:38
What a lovely thing to put in a paragraph. I'm thinking somebody sends me a photo or and I think I'll probably end up quoting you and when somebody says go shopping, send this photograph and you'll go I'll just tell them it's not good enough. How lovely, to say yes, I can draw this. It will be a cat. It won't be your cat because I can't get anything from it. I think that is the most beautiful thing to say and I think people will get that.
Julie Burdon Stone 43:09
I think maybe because I've spent so much of my life around animals, I guess and animals are sentient beings you've only got to look in the eyes of any animal and know that there's an individual inside there. I've seen so many talks about Labradors. I've seen so many Labradors, and they're all different. They've all got different personalities. They've all got little quirks and little cheeky non-sense and they're all different and I think to the person who owns those dogs, they will know what those quirkiness and character traits of those animals are and so that's why for me, it's that connection and to know about those animals particularly. For me, that's what's so important and that's why we're good photographs, and I know that you interviewed by Tassie not long ago and that's one of the reasons why I love her photos so much is because I spent so many times at zoos trying to take good photos, and they've not been great. But her photos, there's a connection with a sentient being you can see that and they don't look miserable. They don't look like some animals do when you take a photograph of them in a zoo look a bit bored and I can't paint animals that look like that and it's funny because when I got made redundant, the first picture I painted after I got made redundant and I was in a really bad place emotionally. I painted a picture of a lion it was a lion that I take the photo of and actually, the photo of the line looked really good. But when I painted it, I was quite pleased with it and then I put it away. I think I put it on Facebook and one of my friends said always beautiful light looks really miserable. So, I had a look at it and I think my emotion had transferred into that lion. Because when I actually looked at it, I thought, do you know what, you're right? I could sense it and it was how I had felt it come across somehow in that lion and I'm super aware of that now. I'm super aware of my emotions and how I'm trying to portray that animal and I think there is that definite connection for me between the work I'm doing and me as a person and that's what makes your work as an artist different from a photograph, because you're putting you into the work. So, it doesn't matter what artist paints a picture of a dog it, we can all paint, it's like your Labradors, or whatever you paint in your tutorials and sometimes I see these amazing pictures where your students you've got 15 different ones of the same animal and they've all put something different into it. It's all the same photo, but the subtleties and different nuances and it's amazing, and I love looking at that. I think, gosh, what was that person thinking when they were drawing that? How were they feeling? In those emotions, I do think come through in work really strongly.
Bonny Snowdon 46:09
Yeah, definitely. So, people, like certain genres of art, and people don't like certain genres of art, and you're always going to get somebody who likes or doesn't like, and one of the biggest things with realism is they all look the same. You can't tell one person is from the other and it's a somebody's opinion and that's maybe what they're seeing and some people do see things as the same and some people do see lots and lots of differences and it could just be how they're kind of viewing it. I've just done this thing, was a bit of an experiment, actually and it worked really, really well and it was like a bit of a masterclass. So, I just chose the image, I had over 100 people who did it and they created it without any input from me. They weren't allowed to share it on social media until it was done. They had to choose their colours. They had to choose their surface. So, it was the same subject, definitely the same subjects. They were all completely and utterly different. Just totally. That's my dog. Hang on. It was brilliant to see. Absolutely brilliant. But I said, don't share on social media, because you don't want to be influenced by anybody. I must see what you do because this is one of the biggest things with teaching. I think a lot of people get stuck when they've done a few tutorials that they feel they can't choose their own colors. The tutor is like a bit of a crutch and it's a blockage. Of course, everybody can choose their own, colour don't matter, does it? As a as somebody who creates tutorials that's like, oh, gosh how do I help somebody create their own things because my goal is to help people create their own work and be able to go on and do whatever they want to do with it, whether it's [inaudible], and it's bringing in these little exercises to be able to help people choose their own stuff and that's been quite interesting doing that.
Julie Burdon Stone 48:36
I think that's an important point, actually. Because when I look at people's work on social media, I can instantly recognize certain artists that I follow by the colour palettes that they use, and it doesn't matter, even if they're drawing different subjects, or even if they've drawn a landscape, and then they're drawing a portrait or whatever the colour palettes that they gravitate towards, are telling about what their work is, and you know instantly that that's their work because of the colour palettes they use and that's about that personalization, isn't it, of the preferences. So, I do think in teaching, that is very important and I always, although with sort of real beginners or people who are wanting to build their confidence, I can start to talk about, these are the colours that I would use, but it doesn't matter if you haven't got the exact colours as you could use something similar, but what you want is the correct tones, and the tonal range and I always encourage people to look at it in black and white anyway, because I think that your brain just gets fixated on colour anyway. I know I do. I get overstimulated sometimes. I get sensory overload when I look at things, and that's probably why I hone in on portraits, actually, and I don't do lots of backgrounds, because I find that honing down onto the subject enables me need to be able to focus really well. I do think I suffer from sensory overload when I'm looking at a big, busy, busy scene, or sometimes I don't do landscapes very often, suddenly there was a start, there's so much going on there. Although I often take a sketchbook out with me, I do sketch a lot, especially on holiday. But I think that's really important. But that's how important art is, even when I used to be out and about in my day job in the evenings, I was always out with the sketchbook. It's always been a part of me, it's part of who I am as person.
Bonny Snowdon 50:39
Oh, it's brilliant, isn't it? Aren't we blessed?
Julie Burdon Stone 50:42
Yes, I absolutely think I'm blessed. enormously because I never get bored. I never mind spending time on my own. I mean, locked down really passed me by with very little problem whatsoever, to be honest, because I was able to get on and do some painting. So, I feel enormously blessed. Because I never do get bored. I never think gosh, well time's dragging. That's the one thing I wish I could have is a clock that I could slow right down, so give me some more hours in the day. Because time just goes so quickly.
Bonny Snowdon 51:19
Oh, gosh, I know. I mean, now, I think the most I spend drawing in a day is probably about five hours. But if I was being absolutely honest about how long I spent, probably it's about three hours a day and today. I've been in meetings all day; I've got another meeting after this and I'll start drawing at about seven. But now I'm thinking I've got art clubs tomorrow, and I'm starting a new piece. So, I've got to draw that piece out. I'm thinking I'm blimey, when am I going to do that.
Julie Burdon Stone 51:51
It's almost like you've gone full circle. So, you've gone from a corporate background to your creative background and now it's almost like you're on the way back.
Bonny Snowdon 51:58
Well, you know funny, you should say that because I obviously being an artist it's me, I have a team of the five of us and I would not be able to do what I'm doing without having a team and I think it's very common in the art world to feel you have to do everything yourself. Very much of the facts that it's all dependent on what you want. But having somebody who is going to help. So, I've got somebody who helps with the customer service side of stuff, she plans my diary for me, she's absolutely brilliant. She works, I think three hours a day. But she's just fantastic. Because running a membership, every time you get somebody who has a missed payment or somebody cancels or you know, there's a process that has to happen and it can be an automated process, which is fine. But the amount of people emailing going, I can't get in, I can't do this, I can't do that. Also Patreon, in a fashion sorts out all of you customer service, very poor, but when it's your own, you have to do and people forget that you've got to have that side of things and then I've got people that helped me with all sorts of different things and it means that I can do what I want to do, which is wonderful and my goal is basically to have a thriving business helping other artists do what they want to do, but also living a life where I can enjoy myself and which is very different to where I was a few years ago, starting to feel a little bit more comfortable. But those old feelings still kind of come rushing back sometimes, and there's always that worry. It's very strange. But well, my feeling is if depending on what your goal is, there's nothing wrong with having somebody helping.
Julie Burdon Stone 54:05
No, and I think you've got to do what works for you and you know yourself better than anybody else and I'm totally with you in terms of like the packaging and stuff like that. I find anything like that, my attention span is really, really limited with things like that. So, I don't know, my business model will be different to yours, and whether that will sustain somebody helping me in the future, but I certainly wouldn't be against having someone to help me in the future. Definitely. I mean I've got people that helped me do things around the house and the garden because I haven't got the time to do those sorts of things. So, in a sense, that is a form of kind of delegation in a sense, but anything that makes your life easier and enables you to do the things that you're good at, I think is a sensible way to be. I mean, you paint most or you draw mostly in the evenings, don't you?
Bonny Snowdon 55:02
Yeah. So, now I tend to draw seven till midnight.
Julie Burdon Stone 55:06
Yeah. Do you find that your most creative time of the day is? Is that what you naturally gravitate towards?
Bonny Snowdon 55:14
I mean, to be fair, I do live streams during the day and I'll also do like video production and all of that kind of stuff. But the actual sitting down and drawing. But I choose to do it that way. If the quieter time, I find the light is more consistent. But then at weekends, I can draw all day if I want.
Julie Burdon Stone 55:44
Yeah. I mean, I do tend to draw in the evenings just because it's always the way that I've worked. But even when I was doing commissions, and when I was an illustrator, I used to often work in the evenings and I used to often work till about two o'clock in the morning. I used to find that I've got less interruptions, because, yes, that lovely, quiet time, isn't it that no one's going to call in and the phone's not going to ring and you've got that lovely, quiet time and you can just lock yourself away, and you can get really good lighting these days and then I've never been a particularly good morning person, I have to say. It always takes me a while to get going in the morning. But I always have to be out in the fresh air at some point of the day, I think I need that to wake my brain up. So, I think as an artist, there's that lovely time that you can sort of gauge the day for your creativity, I think. As an artist, I follow and I admire so much artist called Cesar Santos and he's an oil painter and he's got such passion and such zest for life and he's the most amazing artist and he paints at night, he has a blacked-out studio, and he has it all literally paints at night because that's his most creative time and I think all artists have that moment where they just think that this is their time and that there's going to crack on and do it. So, I like to have those sorts of times where I can just completely shut myself away and just get on with it and be lost in my own little world. I think that's the happiest place I think I ever am.
Bonny Snowdon 57:20
Oh, brilliant. I think that's a nice place. I can't believe we've been talking for an hour already. I'm about to choke now. But I've been so nice to talk to you and you've had all sorts of words of wisdom and everything coming out there I think is just wonderful.
Julie Burdon Stone 57:41
Oh, it's always lovely to talk to you, Bonny. I admire you totally, I think you're a real inspiration and I just love watching your progression. You should never ever have to apologize for your success or your ambition. I think it's well deserved.
Bonny Snowdon 57:58
So kindly. Thank you, thank you and it's just, it's so lovely to see you doing more and more and more and the interaction that you're getting with other people and helping people out. I just think it's so nice. So, I shall watch this space with what your plans are for the future.
Julie Burdon Stone 58:18
Oh, yes, definitely watch this space.
Bonny Snowdon 58:21
Brilliant. Thanks so much for joining me.
Julie Burdon Stone 58:24
Thank you for having me. It's been an honour. Thank you.
Bonny Snowdon 58:27
Bless you. All right, Julie. I'll speak to you soon.
Julie Burdon Stone 59:06
Okay, bye.
Bonny Snowdon 59:07
I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my It's a Bonny Old Life podcast. If you did, I'd be so grateful to you for emailing me or texting a link to the show, or sharing it on social media with those you know who might like it too. My mission with this podcast is all about sharing mine and my communities experience and hope by telling your fascinating personal stories, championing the other amazing humans in my personal, professional and membership community, and to create another channel through which I can support you to realize your coloured pencil and life dreams. If you haven't done so yet. Please help me on my mission to spread positivity and joy throughout the coloured pencil world by following me on my socials at Bonny Snowdon Academy, or by getting on my list at bonnysnowdonacademy.com, and remember, I truly believe if I can live the life of my dreams doing what I love, then you can too. We just need to keep championing and supporting each other along the way in order to make it happen. Till next time
