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.
The start to 2024 has been fabulous, loads of members joining Ignite fun planning sessions for our next art party in Edinburgh and a colourful new tutorial. Grab a cuppa and join me for my latest roundup.
Well, goodness, welcome to our first roundup of 2024. You can see I'm sitting in my kitchen. It's incredibly windy outside and I've made some notes as to what has been going on this month, because I wanna say I, I can't remember. It's been a, it's been a whirlwind, but I've got a few things that I want to talk about, about what we've done and what's coming up, which is,
which is really, really exciting. So, January's always a bit of a funny month, isn't it? You know, you, you sort of, I don't know whether you set goals or your plan stuff, and then probably a little bit like me fail miserably. I had a bit of a run in with a trampoline, not a big trampoline, a little tiny one,
but I decided, right, I'm gonna get a fitter, I'm gonna really help myself. And I, I bought a rebounder and decided this is what, what I was gonna do. And I, I even got a, a habit tracker app and I put, set myself reminders and I found stuff on YouTube to follow on. I got onto the rebounder.
I wasn't even jumping, I was literally just sort of bouncing up and down, did my hip in. So now, well, it's not a laughing matter actually, because it's really painful. I have dodgy joints anyway, but, so now I have really bad sciatica from the rebounder, so, which has stopped me from going out walks and all of that kind of stuff,
which is really frustrating. So I now am swimming a few times a week. I'm doing lengths. I've bought these amazing headphones that you, that are waterproof and they're their bone, I can't remember what they call them now, but they basically sit just in front of your ears. They don't go in your ears, they sit in front of your ears,
bone, conducting headphones, something like that. And they just sort of wrap around the back of the back of my head. And they're amazing because if you, I dunno whether, you know, if you're a swimmer and you're doing lengths, it is so boring. It's just so boring. And this now means that I can listen to podcasts or I'm actually listening to the Lord of the Rings audio book at the moment,
which I'm, oh my goodness, I'm absolutely loving it. I am so loving it. I haven't found another audio book that is, I I love as much as Harry Potter. And now I think I've found one with, with Andy Circus who's doing the, the, the, the narration. And anyway, so that's what I'm doing. It can't t trampoline can't walk,
but I can swim. So I'm, I'm, I'm just trying to get myself all nice and fit basically for my holiday that's coming up in February, which we booked a year ago, I think. Oh, Mirium's coming now. We booked a year ago. So we're going to Sweden, Finland, Norway. We're gonna be doing some, oh no,
get off that. Oh, Mirium, hang on. Here's the naughty cat. She's trying to, I've got a picture that I wanna show you and she's standing on it, so you need to get off gone. You get down there. Good girl. Yeah, so we're off to, we're off to Sweden, we're staying in the ice hotel, all of that kind of stuff.
So my kitchen table is laden with thermal underwear, hand heaters, gloves, and socks. So very excited about that, but I'm try just trying to get a little bit of fitter for that. So what has been happening in January? Oh, she's back up on the table again. She's a monkey. Are you just gonna sit on, alright, then she's gonna sit on the rooster.
We have, we've been doing lots of planning. One of the things that we've been doing a lot of planning for is our next great British art party, which is in March in Edinburgh. And oh, I get so giddy when we start planning stuff and I get so excited. I, I think lemme just, I dunno whether you can see this,
you see that, oh, I'm gonna have to move that 'cause she's gonna, she's gonna be scratching my rooster. Oh, she's so naughty. We will see. Yeah. So I've been, I've been planning the Great British Art Party, which is in March. And so I'm, I'm trying to find a really nice image for us to draw. We've got a little bit longer time this time.
We've got four hours drawing time. We've got the most beautiful hotel that we're going to be holding the, the event in. And we've been planning the goodie bags and that again, it's honestly, oh, cat fur in my mouth now. It's really, really exciting. Looking at what we can sort of source that is gonna be really, really lovely for,
for all of the people who come to open up and everybody get all giddy and everything like that. So, so that's really exciting. We've been, we've been doing that and doing lots and lots of planning and Lucy and I are actually going up to Edinburgh at the beginning of February for a night to stay in the hotel, test out the, the afternoon tea,
have some dinner there and it's just, we're just so excited to sort of see the, see the venue. We're gonna take lots of photos, lots of videos 'cause we have a, a guy who's gonna do all of the audio again. If you came to the last event, which was in November in Stratford Po Aven, was it Stratford Po Aven?
Oh, I can't, I think, I can't even remember. Gosh, honestly, it was, we, we'd, we'd taken on a, an audio visual guy and they put all of these, there were just screens everywhere, big screens everywhere so that everybody who came could see there's nothing worse when you're trying to, you know, follow along if you can't sort of see.
So we are, we're gonna take lots of videos so that we can, you know, ensure that all the setup and everything is correct. And yeah, so that's really, really exciting. Of course, we'd had our, our launch, our our January launch, which has gone, which has gone really, really brilliantly. It's always so, so nice to meet new pe new members coming into the membership.
We have lots and lots of new members, which is, it's amazing actually because it's all about getting people creative. It's all about getting people, you know, getting back, drawing, starting a new hobby, all of that kind of stuff. It's just, it's just, it's just fabulous. And yeah, so that's, so that's happened. And the,
the other thing that's, that's that's really nice is that all of our current members are so welcoming and answer questions and just, you know, we have this most amazing community. I mean, it's a wonderful community who are just there cheering everybody on and it's, yeah, it, it's super, it is absolutely super. So we've had our launch, we've got a new freebie coming soon,
which I've been working hard on that I think is coming the end of this month, beginning of February, something like that. And that one I think you're gonna really, really like. So that will be available to download. You just have to sort of sign up for it and then you can download it and yeah, I'm quite excited about that one because it's,
it kind of is the start of something that I'm gonna be doing. I've been talking about for a long time, well, kind of making hints about it for a long time. And then I've never got around to doing it. So 2024 is the year where I start to actually do the things that I've said I was gonna do sort of more around like the merchandise type stuff.
So I'm, I'm excited about that. And then what else have we got? Oh, we've got an exhibition starting next month for the Ignite members. Amy's been working really, really hard on pulling the, the exhibition together so that you'll be able to view and also the pieces go on sale as well there too. So that would be, that would be really super.
And then, oh, the rooster. Let me show you the rooster. So this is, it's done on drafting film, so it's a little bit, a little bit flimsy and it's had the cat crawling all over it. But here we have the, there's me trying, trying out the colors on the side, the rooster. Hopefully you can see that.
Lemme just see. Oops, I'll just move my head out of the way and then hopefully, there we go. So that's the rooster that we've got as a tutorial. And my tutorials the last few times I've changed the format. So this is available in my Ignite membership. So I've changed the format of my tutorial. So you still get, you still get the step by step so you know,
start to finish step by step. And then what I do is I speed it up and I do a completely new voiceover over the sped up version because there are some people who don't want to, they don't want to do the step-by-step or they just want to kind of see the gist of how it's gonna work. There are some people who will watch it and do the step by step.
And then I've broken bits of the tutorial down. So we have how I created the head area, how I created some of the feathers, you know, and there's sort of like a, a briefing video in there as well where we, where I'm kind of going through the briefing of the, the photograph and telling people how I'm gonna do it, what I'm gonna do,
what we can expect, all of that kind of stuff. So that's how my videos or my tutorials are now broken down. I want as many people to get the benefit of them as possible. And also looking at the different ways that people, you know, learn, you know, 'cause we all learn in different ways. So the rooster is a nice one.
It's up, I think it is 10 hours. It took complete completely 10 hours maybe, maybe a little bit over 10 hours. So it's not ridiculously long. And what was really, what was really, I dunno that I've got it here. I don't think I have, but I've got the line art. But what was really interesting was that I really took the time to create quite a detailed line art.
Then when I came to draw it, I didn't really use the line art, it was just too overwhelming. I get too overwhelming with too many details. So in the end it just was a case of whacking in the colors and it really was about whacking in the colors. You know, I used a ent Chinese white, the ent drawing Chinese white to sort of smudge colors together.
'cause there was a lot of iridescent in the tail feathers. And I wanted there to be that sort of, you know, quality of, of that reflection quality in it. And that worked really, really well. But you know, there was also that lesson of just because you've got all of these lines that you can follow doesn't mean that you have to follow them.
And it doesn't mean that something as intricate as a feather has to be done with minute tiny details. You can actually get something looking, I mean, I'll show you again, if you look at it, it looks really realistic and it looks really detailed. It looks really realistic and it looks really detailed. But actually a lot of this is putting the color in,
whacking the color in, and then taking out the details because it's done on film and see it's done on film there. That's the back of it actually. It worked really, really well that you could use those subtraction techniques, tombo slice tool and just go in and create all of the you, you know, the details on the top. And it doesn't have to be super duper detailed.
It can look super duper detailed, but it doesn't have to be super duper detailed. So that, that, I did really enjoy drawing it. When I got to the point where I wasn't following the photograph, tried to make it exactly the same as a photograph, that's when I started to really enjoy doing it. So that's all and now available for all of my members.
And I'm, I'm hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll start to see those coming through and seeing what people have done with those, which is again, always really, really exciting. The, what's happening this month, I've got a brand new coaching course starting within the membership. This is something that I haven't done before. So I have, within the Ignite membership,
I have all sorts of different live sessions that happen each month. And one of them is my confidence session. And this I think is quite a big pull for people joining. For me, yes, I teach color pencil, but predominantly I'm helping people change their, their mindset and in a way their beliefs about how, whether they can or can't draw.
And then from there, their confidence starts to increase. And that's a massive, massive part of what I teach. And I bring that into all of my teaching, you know, the confidence side of stuff. I bring that all into my teaching. And so now 2024, I have brought in a qualified coach who's also an NLP master practitioner, and she is running a six month coaching course within the membership.
And what's really nice about is that this is, that it is a complete course, it's six month course. However, they're broken down into monthly sections. As much as I want my members to stay for forever, I I know that, you know, sometimes that's not possible. So what I want to do is make sure that people have got those,
those monthly sessions and they're not missing out. Obviously they're missing out, you know, you want all six, but if you can't make all of the six, you've got one and it's a complete, a complete package. And it's, it's, I'm really excited about this. And the reason I'm really excited about this is because coaching and learning about coaching and learning about how my mind works and reflection and all of that kind of stuff,
it completely changed my life. Back in, I think it was 20 20 12, I did like a one day, it was for horse riders, dressage riders. I did a one day coaching course and learned loads of stuff that I, I kind of knew, but I didn't. But, but I didn't realise how important they were. And, and it really,
really had a major, major, major impact on me. So much so that I self-funded a, a qualification in coaching. And I got my exec level seven. I think I've got my exec level seven coaching with the, I can't remember which board it was now. It was so long ago. I, anyway, I can't remember anything. I can't even remember my name.
But I, so I became a professional exec coach, you know, coaching business people. And the, the course that we have or, or Gabby has put together is basically something that is gonna give the most amazing information. Make people really, really think about what they want, who they are, how they want to come across, how they want to live,
how they want to, you know, just all of these different things and give different strategies for people to be able to, you know, do all of these different things. And there'll be some like workbooks and homework and all of that kind of stuff. But this is all within my membership and it's all free for my members. It's, it's amazing.
I mean, if you go and do a coaching course, even one that isn't, hasn't got a qualification, you're gonna be paying a lot of money. And I'm delighted that I can do that within my membership for all of my members. So that is starting this week and I'm really, really, really excited about it and I'm expecting a really good turnout.
We usually get a really good turnout anyway with my, with my members. But yeah, I'm expecting a really good turnout for this. I'm very excited about it. And then the other thing that we've also done is I changed the format of the, of my weekly art club a little bit. And we had three weeks of standalone pieces that were, I'm not gonna say they were simple because they,
they weren't, but they were very much concentrating on certain areas of, of drawing. The first one we did like a curl, a lock of hair with just one pencil, which is always quite nice. I've done a few of those. One pencil ones and they're great for tonal values and just, you know, not getting bogged down with color and all of that kind of stuff.
We did a, some poodle fur, so getting used to using subtraction techniques on drafting film or, you know, whatever surface you've, you've fancied using. And then we did a dog dog color. So looking at the silver work, looking at the, the fabric, that kind of stuff. And there's been some fantastic pieces, you know, coming outta that.
It's just two hours of drawing all of us drawing together, which is great. I I record everything so everybody gets the replay and it was just, yeah, it's gone down really, really well. I've had some really good feedback from that. Just these more simpler pieces where we're, we're, we're just concentrating on a few different things. Tomorrow we start our newest big projects and that is the Kingfisher.
This was something I was gonna do sort of last year and then we put it off, we're now starting the Kingfisher, which again, really excited about, we're gonna be using our coloured pencils, but we're, we're working on film, but we're also going to use neo pastorals in the background. So we're putting a, a fabulous background in, and that's gonna be done with the near pastels on the drafting film.
'cause it, you know, drafting film's a bit of a funny one when it comes to getting smooth, laid down and everything. What you doing? Diddles, you coming up here, come on there, up you come. Yeah. So that's, that's what we're, that's what we're gonna be doing tomorrow. Which, what are you doing? Are you gonna go on the table?
Have to say hello to everybody? So we've had a busy month, busy busy month, and we've got very, very busy time coming up, obviously with our, with the art party, which I am really excited about that I am really excited. I've had a, a friend of mine said, do you want my sons to come and pipe you in?
My sons play the bagpipe, so they'll come and they'll pipe you in. I was like, oh my goodness. So yeah. Yeah. So I I'm, it's been, it is been a, it is been a really nice month. It's been a fun month. It hasn't been too stressful or anything like that. It's just been, it is just been a nice month.
I'm starting my commission work as well. I've got a commission on the board at the moment that I need to finish. Get the next one on there. And our tutorial for next month is going to be a yellow Labrador puppy. I've also got, what else have I got? I've got some more half and half pieces coming up. And I think,
I think I'm gonna do a kangaroo, which I kind of came to me last week because I have a lot of, you know, Australian members and always asking for sort of like that, that kind of animal, kangaroo, koala, that sort of stuff. So I think I found quite a nice picture of a kangaroo that I, I might do as well,
try and fit that in at some point. But next month it's a yellow Labrador puppy, which that I've started to plan a little bit more as well. I've got a big planning book and I'm actually planned up to, I think April with my tutorial. So I know what I'm doing and I, and I'm kind of writing down the elements that I want to teach,
so I'm becoming much more organized, which I tend to stray away from, or I tend to kind of rebel against a lot of the time. But, you know, it's, yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be good. So yeah. So that's me really. That's me. That's my, that's my my first roundup of 2024. Looking forward to,
looking forward to 2024. I've got lots and lots planned. So that's it really. So thank you for listening to my, my waffles and Mirium has calmed down a little bit now she's asleep on the rooster, and I think we've got, oh no, I have, I thought we've got Nelly asleep behind me as well. So nice to see you all and I'll catch up with you later.
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 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 and order to make it happen. Till next time.
