Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon, ex-corporate person, and 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 curve balls, waves of self-doubt, and so many lessons learned. And you'll see ignite, my thriving online coloured pencil artist 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 community's 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 realise their dreams. If you're a passionate coloured pencil artist or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work and a joyful life you love, you are in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking.
One of the biggest challenges an artist faces is trying to price their art. It's a really, I think, a really emotional process because it's almost like putting a price on ourselves. It's almost like putting a, a, you know, a price on you when you're trying to actually find a price to put on your work.
And I wanted to, I've created a video of this before, but I wanted to create an updated video because I've got some more ideas that are gonna be really, really helpful for anybody who is wanting to put their work out there and price their art. Now, the biggest thing, which takes time is to remove yourself from your work. You know,
make it so that your work is, you do it, but you don't hold that emotion against it. I think that's incredibly important because then you can let it go, you can add a price to it, and it doesn't become sort of something that is like, oh gosh, you know, how am I gonna put a price to this? It's,
it's basically like, you know, I'm, I'm selling myself, selling my soul, which it is. It is like that when you are, you know, when you're selling your art. So I've put together a few bits and pieces that I want to talk about. I've got a, an an eight step way of pricing your art. I've got some ideas as to how you can price your art.
There's all sorts of different ways that you can do it, and I'm gonna talk to you about how I priced my art when I first started out. So, factors to consider when you are starting to put a price on your art. How developed are you? How long have you been drawing or painting or whatever it is that you're doing, you know, what is your development level?
What is your skill level? So how skilled are you compared to others in your genre and others in your sort of development group as well? And also, how confident are you? The more confident you are, the more likely it is that your prices will be higher and the less confident. Then you're going to feel sort of like slightly less able, if you like to price your work at a higher level.
If you haven't been drawing for very long, then you are less likely to have a bigger following on social media. And, you know, it's probably a better idea to start on the lower scale of things. If you have been drawing for quite some time and you are not selling your work, it might be the right time to have a look at your marketing plan.
Because honestly, it's never really about the pricing, it's more about how you're putting yourself out there. So if you are an artist and you haven't got full books and you are struggling to get work, then have a look at your marketing plan. It could actually be that you need to raise your prices rather than lower them. What an awful, a lot,
an awful lot of people do is actually lower their prices when they're not selling their work, and I would really recommend against doing that. So there are lots of different ways of pricing your work. You will probably have a favourite way you can guess what price you want to do, which is pretty much what I did at the beginning. You could go with a formula,
you could go with an hourly rate, or you could go with researching your fellow artists and kind of slotting yourself in around what, what they're doing. Now, guessing is what I did from the beginning. I kind of went, hmm, you know, what shall I, what do I feel comfortable selling my work for? Yeah, that sounds okay.
And I started with 40 pounds. So let's go with 40 pounds. You could use a formula. A lot of people use inch times the cost that you put on an inch. So say you have an eight by 10 piece and you charge two pounds per inch, then you are you times your eight by 10, which gives you 80. And then you times that by how much you charge per inch,
which is two. So that gives you a total price of 160, which actually isn't a bad place to start out. 160 pounds for an eight by 10 isn't a bad place to start out. You might want to go down the route of an hourly rate. You've gotta be really, really careful when you are going down this route, because a, a lot of the time you'll see artists spending a huge amount of time,
time on a piece, you know, 40, 50 hours on a piece, and then they break down how much that costs per hour, and they end up earning something crazy, like one pound 50. And you cannot live on one pound, 50 an hour. So when you are thinking about using the hourly rate, again, you have to really,
really think about your development, your skill level about other artists around you, how long you've been doing it. There's all of those factors to bring into it. Because if you say, right, I want to earn 30 pounds an hour, and then you end up, you know, spending 10, 20, maybe 30 hours, you, you are,
you are then going to be charging quite a lot of money, which is great if you are established and your skill level is really good and your development is good. But if you're just starting out and you charge yourself at 30 pounds an hour and you take, say, 20 hours to do something, that's, that's 600 pounds right there as a starting point for someone who's just starting out,
my feeling is yes, we should all be reaching for the stars. We should all be reaching for those higher price points. But when you're first starting out, you know, you've got to be realistic with what you're doing. And of course, you can then create a plan of action to be able to sort of up those prices. So you know,
hourly rate, but be realistic with what you're doing with the hourly rate. And then researching fellow artists. So research artists who are in the same genre as you, the same skill level as you, the same development as you. If you are just starting out and you're wanting to put a price on your work, you would not therefore research somebody who had been doing or in this industry for 5, 6, 7 years,
even sort of, well, two years because they're gonna be far more further on in their journey. They're going to be more skilled, they're going to be more developed. Not, not all of the time, but you know, that's kind of what you're gonna be able to see. So then classing yourself in with those people. It's not necessarily going to be realistic.
So look at people who are just on the same level as you. They've been doing it for a similar amount of time as you, and look at the lower rate of pricing and look at the higher rate of pricing, and then take that average and pop yourself in the middle. Once you've then got your pricing, you can then start to think about how you're going to develop that,
how you're going to raise your prices. And so how I raised my prices was, as soon as I had a couple of months full books, they could be two portraits, they could be 10 portraits, whatever it is that you full books are, you then raise your prices. So you are raising your prices on a regular basis, probably six times a year,
which might seem extreme, but we're only raising them by a nominal amount, a small amount. So say you start off with a hundred pounds, your pieces cost a hundred pounds two months time, you've got full books for two months. So you raise your prices by 20 pounds. So then your lowest price starts at 120. If somebody's gonna pay a hundred,
they're gonna pay 120. Then another couple of months full books, you're gonna raise it from 120 to maybe 150. If they're gonna pay 120, they're gonna pay 150. And you keep going. The worst thing you can do is to set your prices, get a whole year of people booked in, because then you've got everybody paying the same price, and a year from now they're still going to be paying a hundred pounds.
Whereas if you regularly up your prices by a tiny amount, it doesn't have to be a huge amount at the end of the year, you're still booking people in and they're paying more. You cannot run a business charging a hundred pounds for a portrait well you can run a business, but you're not going to make a living from that. So you've got to be really,
really clued up on your pricing, and you've got to really have a goal price in sight. So for example, I started drawing in 2016 when people started asking me to draw portraits for them. I did them for free to begin with, and then I charged 40 pounds when I became a full-time artist. How I decided on my pricing was I worked out how much I needed to earn a month.
That was my, that was my starting point. How much do I need to earn a month to be able to pay my bills, pay my mortgage, and kind of cover everything? And then what I did was I worked out how many portraits I could actually physically do a month, and I was probably unrealistic, but I did manage to do the amount that I chose.
So I chose to do eight portraits a month, which, which it's a huge amount, and it's a ridiculous amount now. And I would not recommend anybody doing eight portraits a month. It was basically two a week, but I was drawing back then eight to 10 hours every single day. That was what I was doing. Now it's completely different. You know,
I managed to maybe get four hours a day in if I'm lucky, but back then, eight to 10 hours was doable for me, and I absolutely loved it. So I took the amount that I needed, which was 2000 pounds. I divided it by the eight, and I came up with 250. So that was my starting point, 250 pounds.
And I had a goal to get to 500 pounds for a portrait within sort of 12 to 18 months. I can remember my words. I was like, nobody, oh my goodness, nobody's gonna pay 500 pounds for a portrait. The pricing structure I have now, and I'm just about to put my pricing up again, my smallest piece, which is a 10 by 12,
will be starting at a thousand pounds. So that's seven years I've been drawing, and I've gone from 40 pounds to a thousand pounds. Even that is, you know, it's really good value. So don't ever think that you can't raise your prices because you, you can. And I'm gonna go through some myths that you'll hear all of the time on social media,
and I want to kind of just put that to bed a little bit and do a little bit of myth busting around pricing as well. Before I go into the mythbusting, I just want to talk to you about a formula that I now use to help my students come up with pricing and also become really comfortable with pricing, because pricing is uncomfortable. So now we're gonna do a little bit of visualisation.
I use visualisation all the time in my business, in my drawing, for any goals, plans, basically, I live my life visualising if I've gotta go and do something that I don't normally do, I will visualise it. So I find it an incredibly, incredibly powerful technique to use for, for anything. We are going to start with working out a price that you find really comfortable,
okay? So it's not necessarily, it's not gonna be a high price if you are just thinking about pricing your work. This is gonna be a relatively low price, and we can take my price of 40 pounds. Okay? So if you feel that 40 is too much and 10 pounds, actually, do you know, I feel 10 pounds is enough,
I, I feel okay asking for 10 pounds. Then you go ahead and ask for 10 pounds. Whatever it is that you feel comfortable with, that's what you're going to start with. So you're gonna take your comfortable price. And with that price, there's no panic, there's no feeling overwhelmed, there's no feeling, gosh, ooh, you know, nobody's gonna buy that.
You think Mm, do you know what actually, I, I feel okay with that. I feel okay with that price. So we're gonna take 40 pounds, I feel okay with that price. Good. So next, what we're gonna do is we're gonna think about, okay, so if I sell my work for 40 pounds, how am I gonna feel about that?
How am I gonna feel? How, what am I gonna buy? What will I be able to pay for if I sell my work for 40 pounds? You know, I might be able to get some new pencils or new paper or something like that. Okay? So we're feeling really comfortable. Next, what I want you to do is I want you to take that price,
and I want you to increase it slightly, and I want you to increase it so that you start to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not, not outright panic, but a little bit uncomfortable. So you're thinking, oh gosh, you know, we're not having sort of like heart palpitations yet. We're feeling a bit, oh yeah. Oh, I think I could tell for that,
but I, oh, I, I do. Hmm. I feel a little bit uncomfortable, but actually, do you know what? Let's let, okay, let's go for it. So I'm gonna push my 40 to 60. I'm gonna push my 40 pounds to 60 pounds. I'm okay. I'm not feeling overwhelmed. I'm not gonna have a heart attack.
I'm, I'm okay with that. And now what I want you to do is I want you to really think about what that 60 pounds will feel like. So we're gonna sell a piece for 60 pounds. What will that mean for me? How will that feel? What will I be able to buy with that? What will I be able to pay for that extra little bit of money?
How, how, what difference is that going to make? And I want you to kind of sit with that for a little bit and think about it. You know what, actually, you know, an extra 20 pounds on top of what I was already asking means I could kind of, you know, replenish my pencil stock. I could buy that more expensive paper that I've been really wanting to try out,
you know, I could have a takeaway on a Friday. All of these little things. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling okay with that now. So now what I want you to do, and you need to stick with me on this because it works, and I want you to stay really, really positive. I want you to take that 60 pounds,
and I want you to add a zero onto the end of it, okay? And I can see you all sitting there going, nobody. No, just no, no. So we're now looking at 600 pounds, and I want you to just sit there and just in your wildest dreams, it might be, what would it feel like? And I want you to stay with me on this,
and I want you to stay really, really positive. None of that negativity starting to flit in. Don't let that, that negative in a voice come in and go. Just absolutely no, go back to your 40. You know, I want that positivity. I want you to really think about what it would feel like. You know, visualise, visualise how it would feel if somebody handed over that 600 pounds,
put 600 pounds in your bank, if you were downloading it, you know, moving it from PayPal to your bank. How would that feel? That would feel really good. That would feel really good. You know, you, you, your worth has gone right up to 600 pounds. Think about, you know, how your life would change if you were doing,
I don't know, four pieces a month for 600 pounds. Think about how much else you would be able to put in. You'd be able to pay your bills, you'd still have time to be able to do originals or, you know, do whatever you wanted to do. Really think about how your life would change, how you would feel, what it would be like if your piece were earning 600 pounds for the,
the smallest of pieces. Think about what you'd be able to pay for. Think about how your life would change. That's a really, really good feeling. And, you know, you might have to work a little bit on this, and you might have to kind of do this a few times to be able to then get into that comfortable feeling of visualisation.
It's a such a powerful technique. So we're feeling, yeah, do you know what? Be really good, wouldn't it? My pieces was 600 pounds. So now what I want you to do, and I, and I know you're all sitting there thinking, I know what she's gonna do next. We're gonna add another zero to that 600 pounds. We're gonna make it 6,000 pounds.
Oh my goodness. Can you imagine I've sold a piece, or I'm taking commissions and I'm charging 6,000 pounds for one of my pieces. How utterly amazing is that? And it's completely doable because you just have to go into a gallery and you see that that's what people are, are paying more than that. How would that feel? What difference would that make if one of your pieces would just one piece,
you just have to do one piece a month and you would be earning 72,000 pounds a year. Can you imagine what that would feel like? Can you imagine the difference it would make to your life, to your family's life? Oh my goodness. And people are buying your work for 6,000 pounds. How does that feel? That feels absolutely amazing. It feels amazing.
And you can just sit and just think about how it would feel. Close your eyes if it helps, but really, really think about how that would feel if you were, if you were, you know, selling your work for 6,000. That's a lot of money. And now what I want you to do, I want you to come back to your slightly uncomfortable price.
So ours was 60. I'm sitting now, I'm thinking 60 quid. No, I'm gonna make it a hundred. I'm gonna make it a hundred. Because actually I, I've been thinking about what it's gonna be like to sell it for 600. And I've been thinking about what it's gonna be like selling it for 6,000. I'm thinking I'm gonna start with a hundred.
And I feel really confident with that, and I feel happy with that. And I'm gonna start with a hundred. And whatever you come up with, if you work, if you play around with this little sort of formula that, that I've given you here, you're really, really going to start to be able to get comfortable. You're gonna be able to start thinking about what your life could be like in the future if you just priced your work that little bit higher.
We've gone from 40 to 60 to a hundred, and we feel confident with that. And think about, you know, you're selling your work for a hundred pounds in a year's time. If you up it slightly, you could be selling your work for 200, then in two years time it could be 600 or it could be a thousand, whatever you want to put your price at.
But it's about feeling confidence, it's about feeling okay with the pricing. And that's something to really, really, really think about and play around with that little sort of scenario that I've given you, because it really, really works. Now, I want to just share some myths with you around pricing. And you will see these coming up all over Facebook.
You know, you'll see established artists giving you all of this rubbish about, you know, why you can't increase your pricing or why you can't become a, an artist. Because you know, there's too many artists out there. So number one, the market is saturated. The market is saturated with pet portrait artists or digital artists, or this artist or that artist market saturated.
So you've got no chance. There's too many people doing it. Well, let me tell you what a myth this is. You are so lucky going into a market where there are so many people doing the same thing. 'cause it means that there is demand for it. It means that people are wanting what these people are selling, otherwise they wouldn't be in business.
If you were going to do something and you went out there and there was like, oh God, there's only 10 people throughout the whole world doing this, oh my goodness, you would be in trouble because it means that there's no demand for it. You know? Yeah, you might have those niche things where somebody's doing something really, really particular, but you look at a marketplace where there's lots of people doing it,
it means that there is demand, and it means that the people out there are wanting what you are selling. And that is a brilliant, brilliant thing. Another myth number two, we're going through a cost of living crisis. And do you know what? If you listen to the news and you listen to the right bit of TikTok, you will totally get that we are in a cost of living crisis and that nobody can do anything and nobody can afford anything.
However, if you don't listen to news and you don't watch that part of TikTok, you will know that there are so many people out there who are still buying luxury items. I just have to go out. We've been going out every Saturday, taking my dad out for lunch while my mom's in hospital. We've been going out every Saturday, we've had to book,
and the places we've been going to are heaving. And they're not, you know, they're not sort of like a cheap cafe. They're the Ivy and Harrogate, Betty's, they are heaving. We are having to queue, people are spending money. So do not believe that people aren't buying art because they really, really are. You know, if you live in a scarcity mindset,
if you live believe in that, people aren't buying and you believe that people can't afford stuff, and do you know what? There are people who can't afford stuff and it's awful. But when you're running a business, you need to know that there are people out there who are buying art and are buying luxury items. So don't live in a scarcity mindset and believe that it's not happening.
So my final myth, myth number three, artists who are selling their work cheaply are stopping artists who are selling their work for more money from getting clients, because the cheap artists are getting everybody buying their work. And that is a complete and utter load of God's swallow. It really, really is. If you think about it. So say you've got somebody selling their work for 10 pounds,
okay? And you think if they're selling their work for 10 pounds, and I'm trying to sell mine for 400, how on earth am I gonna get anybody to pay for my work? Because they're all gonna be queuing down the street to buy Joe blog's down there for 10 pounds. Well, honestly, you cannot be further from the truth. If you're selling something for 10 pounds,
the people who would buy for 10 pounds are very likely to try and haggle you down to five pounds. They're very likely to tell you that John down the road can actually do it for, for free. So they're gonna go with him and not the 10 pound one. If you wanna sell your work for 10 pounds, do you know what? Go ahead.
You know, you, you're not gonna make a living from it. But if it's a hobby and you wanna sell it for 10 quid, great, that that's great. But if you're worrying that those people who are selling for 10 pounds are gonna take all of your custom, then you couldn't be further from the truth. If you are selling your work for 400, 500, 600 pounds,
say the people who are going to be spending 600 pounds would not touch a 10 pound portrait with a barge pole. And the reason why is because they don't class it as a quality piece of work in their eyes. They see what you pay for is what you get. So if you pay 10 pounds, you're not, you're gonna get 10 pound quality.
We know that's not true because there are people out there selling stuff for 10 quid and it's beautiful. But the psychology behind pricing, it doesn't work that way. So you sell something for 600 pounds, you are not targeting the same audience that somebody who is paying or charging 10 pounds for completely different audience. And your audience would not even be looking at somebody who's charging 10 pounds because they think it was rubbish.
So that's something to really, really, really get to grips with. Really start to understand. It's all about your audience, all about who you are putting yourself in front of. That's a whole different conversation trying to find your audience. But if you are selling your work for 600, you do not need to worry that the, the people who are selling for 10 pounds have taken all of the people and taken all of the orders and bookings because it's not true.
So I hope that has been useful. Pricing is a very emotive subject. It's something that people really worry about. A lot of it, most of it comes down to confidence. So if you can build your confidence around your work, also, if you can start being really proud of what you do. So whatever you do something you become really proud of it.
Make sure that when you finish your work, if you are one of those people who likes to pull it to pieces and post on social media and say, Ugh, I've done a rubbish job with this, blah, blah, blah, then I would really encourage you to start thinking about the stuff that's gone well with your work. Start thinking about all of the good stuff with your work,
the, the, the stuff that you're not as happy with. Make a plan of action to increase your development around that part. So if you really struggle with dog's noses, but the rest of your fur and everything is great, then make a plan of action. You know, practice your dog's noses. You know, work out what you can do differently to make your dog noses better.
If you struggle with values, do some work around values. Really, really look at how you can improve that. You know, do a tutorial or just work on something that's got really high values and, you know, increase that skill level. Because as much as you feel proud of your pieces, and as long as you're feeling really happy with what you're doing,
you're going to feel much, much more confident in pricing your work at a reasonable rate. Nobody wants to be pricing their work at 10 pounds. You know, and you don't have to price your work at 10 pounds. You can increase that rate. You can make it much, much, much more than that, and you can make a fantastic living from your art,
but you've gotta kind of get comfortable with what it is that you are valuing your yourself ultimately, and your art at.
I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my, It's A BonnyOld 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 community's 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 realise 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.
