Hello, I'm Bonnie Snowden, 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 curveballs, 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 Bonnie 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're in the right place.
Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking. Well, welcome to June's roundup. A little bit longer this time and I'm just waffling on as usual about books that I've read and pieces that I've drawn and my trip to Amsterdam and just all the stuff that I've been doing in June. So sit back with your. I don't know. I don't know what you're going to be having in this hot weather.
Some nice cucumber water or something like that and enjoy. Well, welcome to June's roundup. This one, I think is probably going to be a little bit longer than the maize one, which was really, really quick in my standards because I was so. May was just such a whirlwind and the trip to America and all of that kind of stuff. So June has been just as busy I've been.
I was in Amsterdam last week, which was really exciting. I'll talk to you about that in a, in a second. We. Gosh, I can't remember, it's gone so quickly. I don't know how months go so quickly. I just don't. I just don't. I've done a couple of great pieces or I think great pieces this month for the ignite community. So we've had a new art club piece, we've had a new tutorial piece.
The. The weather's got a lot better in the UK. It's currently beautiful blue skies and very warm, which is lovely. But I had to get my crocs out. That's the kind of person I am. And, yeah, it's just been sort of all go, really. So, big news for June is that I am taking on some new offices, which I'm very, very excited about. It's something that I've been thinking about for an awfully long time, trying to find the right place.
And finally I found the right place. So we're moving probably second week in July, something like that. It's not very far away from me at all. It's about 20 minutes away. Really lovely offices. And it means that we've got more space. I'm still going to have my studio at home, but we'll have more space for all of the stuff that goes on outside of the drawing. And anybody who's a full time artist will know that the drawing side of stuff or the painting side of stuff or the creating side of stuff is the minority.
Is the minority of work that you do as a full time artist. It's all of the other things that take all of the time up. So that's very exciting. And we're welcoming in a new member of staff next month, as well as a sort of community manager who's going to be very much about looking after. Looking after all of my members and making sure they have an amazing experience.
So that's going to be exciting. And I will be introducing her at some point. And what else? Yeah, so that's my really exciting news. I was in Amsterdam last week. We actually decided to go. I'm part of a business mastermind and we have every sort of couple of months. We have sort of like a couple of days where we meet virtually online and we have sort of like a full day online.
So we decided, or a couple of my peers and I decided, that we would actually meet up, sort of like get an Airbnb somewhere and do the virtual days together, because you get so much more out of it. Anyway, it kind of coincided with when Esther Hicks was in Amsterdam and, of course, I went to see Esther last year and. Oh, honestly, just life changing, mind blowing stuff.
So we all decided, you know what? We'll go and see Esther and then we'll spend the. You know, we'll do the masterminding and everything in Amsterdam. So we got it all booked. Got a lovely, lovely house, three bedroomed house just outside Amsterdam, Airbnb for the week. And then, of course, the dates changed for the mastermind, and we were like, do you know what? We'll go. Anyway. So we, I met up with Michelle and Lizzie in Amsterdam on last Friday, and it was just, it was just fabulous.
It was so brilliant to spend time with amazing people who are so passionate about their businesses, but also really positive and really, you know, same sort of, you know, the vibe that you want to be around. And we went off to see Esther on the Saturday and the Sunday, and it was just, oh, my goodness, if you haven't been to see her or if you haven't listened to her, Esther Hicks.
Esther and Abraham Hicks is just amazing. Every single question she answered, you got the same answer, but just in a different way. And it's basically, you know, live your life feeling joyous. Don't worry about what other people are doing. Don't get upset about what other people are doing. Don't compare yourself. Don't you know, all of the stuff that we say all of the time when it comes to creativity and our art and all of the stuff that we end up doing anyway, you know, do what makes you happy.
And if you're not feeling happy, it's because you're not doing the stuff that makes you happy. You know, find easy ways of making yourself happy. It doesn't have to be hard to be happy. And we came away on the Sunday with so many ideas and such a high vibration. It was just fantastic. And you forget what you want in life. You really, really do. And you get all bogged down with the day to day rubbish of, you know, just living a life, looking after a family, running a business, that kind of stuff.
And it, you forget what it is that actually makes you tick and what makes you really happy. So that was amazing. And then we spent the rest of the week. It's so funny. We're all sort of workaholics, really. Liz is a member of Soho House, and for those of you who don't know Soho, it's not some seedy establishment. It's actually an amazing membership of, like, home from home places across the world, where if you're a member, you can just kind of go in and they've got food and, you know, rooms and gym and swimming pools.
It's just that it's, it's luxurious, it's beautiful, it's lovely. So we spent the majority of the time in Amsterdam, Soho House, which was fantastic working away. So I managed to get a lot done on a new course that I have been cultivating for the last two years cultivating in my head, and I finally got it down into some kind of a semblance of what it's going to be.
And it is finally, you will be, I think, very excited to hear my business course, my pet portrait business course, because, of course, that's how I started out. And I've got a successful pet portrait business that I run alongside my teaching. So that is very much still in development, but it's very nearly at the point where I can do all of the recording. And I'm really excited about it because I know that there are a lot of artists who do find the marketing side of stuff really, really challenging, and I want to make that a simpler process and basically kind of download everything that I've done over the last sort of seven, eight years.
And I think it's because I'm so passionate about business and I do, I'm a, I'm actually a really good businesswoman, you know, which is kind of, you know, testament to my success in both the teaching and the, the pet portrait, you know, businesses that I have. And I think it's, I think it's really, I think it's something that's really, really needed. And I don't think there's enough information out there.
So it started off as being quite a small entry level. And of course, you just can't go small and entry, can you? It's like, boom, you've just got to put everything in there, because if you, if you buy a course, you, you want to know everything, don't you? You don't just want to know just a little bit of this and a little bit of that? No, I want to know everything.
So it's kind of getting bigger and bigger as I, as I go along. And I will be putting out some information for people to join a waitlist at some point. My thinking is I might do it as like a beta course, like, you know, where it's finished, but it's not refined, it's not polished, and anybody who joins gets a discounted rate and gets to sort of give their feedback and everything.
I haven't quite decided how it's going to work yet, but that sort of, on the cards a little bit, but it's going to be really comprehensive. And I am very, very excited about it. Downloads and templates and all of that kind of stuff, and basically giving you the information of what I do in my business and how I do it. So I'm excited about that. And it's taking a lot of my time up and being in Amsterdam, actually helped me to sort of sit down and really, really focus for, um, you know, I know, six or 7 hours and just really focus and get it all.
Get it all done, which I'm. Which I'm excited about. Um, so my drawings at the moment, I'm working on a commission piece. I'm still really struggling with the poor quality of the Clairefontaine pastel mat. I have to say. It's so disappointing and frustrating and sad because that's my favourite surface ever. And I'm working on a piece now and it's just, it's. It's not. It's not good. And I don't know, I've tried.
I've tried to speak to them. I've tried to. We've had conversations and everything, and it just, you know, whether something's changed in the manufacturing process or ingredients or something, I hate talking about this. I hate saying this because I absolutely love pastel matte, but, you know, you just don't know what you're gonna get. And I'm working on a piece at the moment and it's. I'm not enjoying it at all, which is really sad.
However, I am really enjoying the rising museum board. And I've got a couple of pieces here as well. I've actually got a pastel map piece here too. This pastel mat piece that I worked on. So this was an art club piece, the swan. You can see that there, which was nice. It only took. I mean, it was three. Three weeks that it took us in art club. And this was done on the light grey pastel mat.
Not going into huge detail, but just goes to show that you can take a piece and create something quite simply and quite dramatically and get really lovely result from it. And the light grey pastel mat that I used for this one actually worked really, really nicely. You know, it. It's. It's that beautiful velvety surface. It's just. It just worked really well. And, you know, that's. That's what we kind of want all of the time.
Please, Clairefontaine. But it's just. Yeah, so that was one piece that we did. Then I did a. The latest tutorial on the kangaroo is a little bit dark there. It's actually quite big. I did it on the back of the. The one where I was doing for colour pencil week, my fur and eyes and everything, just to sort of save. Oops, wrong way. Just to save some. Some paper and everything.
But that's done on the rising museum board. You can see all of that lovely fur. It's a really, really, really nice surface to use. It's a really nice surface to use. It's, um. It comes in different thicknesses, which they call ply. So this is four ply, which is basically four pieces of the. The paper stuck together. I think it goes up to eight ply, which is sort of double this thickness.
It takes pencil really nicely. It works like a hot press paper and it's just really nice to use. It's a really, really nice surface to use. You can't. It's not a replacement for pastel mattress because you can't use light over dark. You can't use the same techniques and everything as you can with pastel matte because it's like a hot press paper and you use the hot press paper techniques for it.
So any kind of smooth paper, you use one sort of technique, drafting film, you use another technique. And abrasive surfaces like pastel mat, you know, like santed paper, that kind of stuff, you use another technique with sort of little, you know, tweaks in there as well. So you have to think about isolation, your highlights, you have to think about. And also each surface takes erasers, scotch tape, slice tool, that kind of thing differently as well.
So it's not like a one size fits all, and you do everything the same on each thing. You kind of have to work out what works and what doesn't. And that's what's really fabulous about colour pencil and about the surfaces, you know, the experimenting on them and having a go and having a play and seeing what works and seeing what you like and what doesn't like, you know, and I'm a big advocate of using what you have.
You know, if anybody asks me, you know, do I need to have all of the stuff that I've got that I put in my tutorials? And I'm always like, no, use what you have and we'll help you find alternatives. They're great little tools, like the Karen holes comparison chart. Great tool. There's the groups that you can say, I haven't got this pencil. What can I have? And my community is amazing at helping people find alternatives.
So, you know, it's not about getting exactly the same, you know, materials as me, it's about using what you have. And if you're excited by coloured pencil, then of course, you know, you're going to want to buy everything, but you can use what you have, and that's what's brilliant about coloured pencil. You can use what you have, you can use different surfaces and you can get fantastic results.
You know, I only use coloured pencil, apart from on the odd occasion that I might use, um, neopastels on film, but I only use colour pencils. So my communities reflect that their only coloured pencil, you know, and I know some people might think that's a bit mean, that I'm like, you know, saying, oh, no, you can't come in if you've got pastels and whatever, but, you know, I think that's fair enough.
I think it's fair enough that I only use coloured pencil. So my groups are only coloured pencil. I think that is something that I'm very clear about. It's not that I don't, you know, like other people using other mediums. Of course I do, but there are other groups for that. And I did have another group that allowed all of those different mediums, but it just got completely. It just got, it just got completely out of hand.
And I'm so passionate about coloured pencil. And when your group, your community is mostly pastels, I can't help those people because I don't use pastels, you know. So I think it's, you know, it's okay if you want to refine what you use and you don't want to use all of the other, you know, materials, the other mediums and everything. That's okay. That's all right. You can do that.
If you want to use them all. If you want to use all of the mediums, you can do that too. That's okay, too. And you can find loads of groups and communities that are for mixed media, but it's not, you know, we're not discriminating, we're not sort of telling people that they're wrong in doing it. I'm just going with my values and what I do, and I think it's really important to stand up for what you do.
And if you, and if you want to do something in a certain way, do it, because that's you and that's really important to do that. And nobody should be telling you, you know, that you can't do something in a certain way. However, you know, if I'm saying my group is coloured pencil only, it's coloured pencil only, and that's okay, too. So, yeah, so I've got my little kangaroo that I did.
Well, quite a big kangaroo that I did. And I'm not sure whether I showed you, I know I showed in the, in the shorts, but this was the cowgirl. I'm just going to go back a little bit because it is really big. So this is the cowgirl that I did as well on the rising museum board. I absolutely loved drawing this. I absolutely loved it. It hasn't faded.
The depth of it has stayed just. It's gone a bit blurry. I think it was the most fantastic surface to draw. And you can see how big it is. You know, it's not a little tiddly tiddly drawing. It's big. And I absolutely loved it. I need to get this framed and put on my wall because I really, really do love this piece and I love drawing it. And it was just an absolute joy, to be honest.
I'm actually considering now, going back to look at this. I'm considering whether I. Whether I redo the big commission that I'm doing, which has to be ready for the end of July. Whether I actually redo it on the museum rising. The rising museum board, even, because I'm looking at this and thinking, the fur has worked really nicely, the hair has worked really nicely. The darks are really nice and dark.
Just everything about it has worked beautifully. So, to be fair, the commission that I'm doing at the minute, the photo is pretty poor. So that combined with a grainy surface, it just kind of. It doesn't. It's not a match made in heaven, really, but, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. And then I've been reading a couple of books as well. Just pop these over here. I've been reading a couple of books which have.
Oh, gosh. Which have made me think an awful lot. I was looking for my phone, and clearly I'm staring into it. One of these books is called the courage to be disliked. And I was recommended this by a few people. And it isn't what you think it is. It isn't, you know, doesn't matter what people say, blah, blah, blah, all of that kind of thing. It's very unexpected how it's been written.
I can't remember who's written it. It's an audio book, actually, that I've. That I've got. It's called the courage to be disliked. And it's more of a conversation. So the book is written as a conversation. And it's really made me think deeply about all sorts of things, just, you know, all sorts of stuff that go on in the world and not necessarily just about me. And it isn't really about being disliked.
It's about being really secure in who you are. And if you're really secure in who you are, you won't care whether people like you or not. And it's a. And I haven't picked it up because I was like, oh, people don't like me and I need to be okay with that. I know people don't like me and I'm okay with that. It's more about the philosophy in the writing and it makes you think really deeply about things.
It's very, very, very interesting. I'll see if I can find the author. Well, you just type in the courage to be disliked. I think it's a japanese author, but it's beautifully written, very unexpected. I was just expecting it to be like a normal business self help book. But it's a conversation between two people and it's fascinating, absolutely fascinating, because one of the people is saying, well, what about this, this, that and the other?
And so, and so, and la la la. And the philosopher comes back and says, oh, well, yes, but you know, and you're thinking, no, the philosophy. No, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're absolutely wrong, you know, in what you're saying. And then he keeps talking and they go, oh, yeah, maybe you've got a point. It's just, it's just a really interesting book. So I would definitely recommend that. And then what's another book?
Oh, I'm reading a novel at the minute. It's a vintage novel. I can't even remember the person's name who's written it. But I'm sure you'll, you'll, you'll recognise it. It's called the Enchanted April and my sister recommended it. She's read it about ten times and it's written in the early 19 hundreds, I think. Early 19 hundreds, something like that. And it's fabulous. It's about four women who go away for the month of April to a castle in Italy.
And, you know, the, the language is completely different to the language that we, we use today. So I'm having to read it quite slowly because the, you know, the vocabulary that's used is quite different. But it's, it's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic. I'm loving it. Really, really loving it. The characters in the book and how they sort of, you know, interact. And there's one, there's one lady, we never get to know her, her first name.
She's called Misses Fisher. We never get to know her first name. She's an older lady with a stick. I don't think she really needs her stick, but she has her stick and she's kind of ensconced herself in certain parts of the castle and she's taken them to be her own. Then there's a lady, Caroline, who has kind of come away because she's sick of people recognising her and she's sort of like this young, beautiful woman.
And even when she tries to be angry, she can't, because her face is so lovely and her voice is so musical that when she's shouting at people, they're like, oh, you're so beautiful. It's really funny. And then you've got misses Arbuthnot and misses Wilkins, who kind of met at a ladies club in London, I think, and saw this advert and decided they were going to go. And they're sort of like in, I think, unhappy marriages, I think, or marriages where they're not overly content and it's just a fascinating read.
Listening and hearing and kind of living with these four women. This castle with beautiful weather and all of this stuff going on. It's. It's just. It's just lovely. So there's no nastiness in it. There's no. You know, there's no poor language. There's. There's no. It's just lovely. It's just really lovely. And I'm really, really enjoying it. So I like. I'm quite. I've got quite an eclectic taste when it comes to books.
I've got things like. So I'm a member of a book club. It's called the Locked library. So I get books like this every month. This is called the. When the moon hatched. And they've all got these beautiful painted edges. This one I'm quite excited to start. So I read sort of like fantasy stuff. I read, you know, sort of thriller stuff, the sort of more old fashioned stuff.
And I love my self help and business books. I really, really love my business books. So, yeah, I've got quite a. I've got a big. I don't know if you can see it. Let me just show you. I've got this big. This big. Oops. My business. That's just my business books. That bag there that you can see is full of slippers fur, because I'm having a sculpture made, a felt sculpture made of slipper, and they're using her fur in the sculpture.
So I'm quite excited about that. I just realised it's very dark in here because I don't have any lights on at all. How silly is that? So I'm sorry if it's really dark. So, yeah, so that's kind of been my June. It's. It's been. It's been fun. It's been excited, exciting. Travelling again next week. So I get the new furniture for the offices on Saturday. It's all being delivered.
So we won't be moving in, I don't think, the first week in July, I think it'll be the second week, we just sort of move stuff across and get settled and I'll probably go and sit there and kind of figure out Wi Fi and all of that kind of thing. So that'll be good. And then we go down to London on the. I think the 6 July we're going to see.
I'm so excited. I bought this for my birthday. We're going to see the film, the Lion King film, the original Lion King film at the Albert hall with live choir and orchestra. So all of the music, all of the. Everything is done live and you just see the picture. So I'm really, really, really excited about that. So we're going down on the 6th, staying overnight and then coming back on the 7th.
So that's exciting. And then very nearly. I didn't, I didn't. I looked at how much the tickets were and I was like, oh, no, I don't think I can. I very nearly bought flights to Auckland in New Zealand for November because I want to. Really want to see Coldplay. And they're playing in New Zealand and they have tickets. They don't have any tickets anywhere else. And I was like, right, I'll fly to New Zealand.
I was like, what are you thinking? No, you won't. So anyway, I'll have to see if I can find some other tickets. I think it's playing in. I think they're in Dublin as well. I've just been seeing TikToks of Coldplay and it just looks absolutely amazing. Just amazing. I'm just like, you know, just amazing. Anyway, so, yeah, I don't think I'll be going to New Zealand to see them.
Oh, dear, that would be very. Yeah, so, yeah, so that's kind of it, really. I can't think of anything else. Doggies are all okay. Dora's moulting like absolute mad. She's a poodle cross. And of course, I think people think poodle crosses don't moult, but some of them do and some of them don't. But she is like, oh, my goodness, moulting so much. And she sleeps on my bed, so my bed is covered, covered in dora hair.
She's like this. I don't know. I don't know why she moults so much, but I'm having to give her, like, properly groom her every day to get it. And she's, you know, sleek hair. She looks more like a spaniel than her. Than anything else, so. Yeah. And Vinnie's having some physio because he's very tight across his back, so he's having. He's having physio. His physio is up near where I used to live when I was younger, when I was.
Lived at home and up in Dacre, just over from Paley bridge. So when I took him a couple of weeks ago, I went back over the tops over where I used to live. Oh. You know, you get that feeling when you see something and literally every single hair on your body stands up. And I was like, this is where I'm supposed to be, you know, overlooking the most beautiful views and everything.
So that's a. That's another dream now. I love where I am. I love where I am, but I love to have somewhere that's got the views like I used to have when I was little and maybe a little bit of land or something, but it's just so ridiculously. I mean, there's just nothing available. You either buy, like, a huge, like, you know, ridiculously, like, 2 million pound house with, like, loads of land, or there's nothing, you know, so I'll just have to keep dreaming on that respect.
But, yeah, I got a new tumble dryer. Just while we're sharing stuff, got a new tumble dryer. It arrived. I wasn't at home. They delivered it and put it in the field next to the house, which doesn't even belong to me. I was like, why have you. Why have you put the tumble dryer in the. In the field? They had to, like, get into the field through the gate, which was, like, really difficult to get through, and then put this palette and the tumble dryer in the.
I'm like, why didn't you just leave it, you know, in front of the house? I mean, how many people are going to come and nick a tumble dryer? Let's face it anyway. But I've got that now, and it's really good and it's working, which is really nice. So, yeah, all is well. And my lavender is going crazy in the garden. Absolutely crazy. It's kind of spread. Like, it.
It's like a. Like a lavender field. It's spread. It's huge. There's loads of it. But that's lovely because there's lots of bees and everything. Bees like lavender. So the garden is looking really pretty and, yeah, I think that's about it, really. So I'll stop waffling. You probably preferred my May 1 when when it was only about five minutes, I stopped waffling on. And as always, thank you for all of your support.
You know, I love doing what I do, helping people, you know, refine their creativity and hopefully come later on this year. I think hopefully October ish, you know, be able to start helping people more with their, with their businesses too, which I'm equally as passionate about. So yeah, thank you for listening and staying with me and I'll see you very soon. Okay, bye. I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my it's a Bonnie 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 at 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 Bonnie Snowden Academy or by getting on my [email protected]. 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.
