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 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 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're in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking. Welcome to July's roundup. Lots going on as usual. New offices, new staff trip to London, lots of barking from the dogs and a new drawing that I'm really excited about. So grab your cup of tea and your custard cream and sit back and relax.
Hello, everybody, welcome to another roundup. I'm in my kitchen with the bear. I still have no idea why the bear's there. I think it was my daughter's and she's kind of decided she doesn't want it in her room. So it's made its way, way down into the kitchen and the dogs love to cuddle it, so, yeah, so, as per usual, we've had a very, very busy month. I've had some really exciting things this month to tell you about.
The most exciting one is that we have moved into our new offices, which are absolutely gorgeous and it's just been. I've been looking for something for quite a while. I was initially looking to try and buy something and there's just not the right kind of property around that would work. So I've ended up renting in a business park and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's in a lovely area, it's a beautiful building.
I've got two sort of conjoining offices and it's just really, really exciting for me, you know, that all of this hard work has meant that I can provide a space for my employees that's just really lovely to work in. And it means that I don't have, you know, I've got my home back. Sorry, I've got something in my eye. It's like on a bit of a roll, I'm like, oh, my goodness, I've got something in my.
I think it's still there. Yeah. So I've got my, I've got my. I've got my home back now, which is, which is really nice. It's worked very, very well having people working for me sort of in the house for the last four years. But I think it was definitely time, you know, to create a space specifically for them. And I think it's more. It's more professional and it works better and it's just a really nice place to work.
So it's just outside Harrogate and I'm still working from home, so I still have my studio at home. But the team are now, the full time team are now working out of the offices, which is great. And I've got a new member of staff as well who started this month, which is really exciting. My daughter Maisie, she has joined me and is going great. Guns is so proactive, is, you know, just, just everything I knew she would be.
And I'm. I'm really, really excited about working. Working with her, you know, because it means that I can share. I mean, for all of these years that I've been drawing and I've been running my business, you know, my children, I think they just think that I sit and watch videos all day or draw. And it was quite funny, actually, because, you know, she was a bit. I think whenever you start a new job, there's a bit of that trepidation.
There's a bit of that, oh, gosh, you know, how's it going to work? And especially when you're working with family, you know, and she was like, well, I'm just. I'm just not sure mum, you know, she was really excited about it, but it was more like, I'm just. She said, knowing how chaotic you are, I'm just a little bit worried about, you know, how this business is run.
And I think she was in for a really pleasant surprise. So we took her through and kind of on boarded her and took her through how the business worked. And she was like, oh, wow, this is really professional. This is like a proper business. And I was like, oh, yeah, you know, so all of the systems, the processes, the different platforms that we use. And I think she was really, really surprised that her silly old mum could actually create a business that was, you know, pretty well run.
So she. She's been. I think she's into her third week now and is really enjoying it. She's got some fantastic ideas and I'm just really, really happy that she's working for me and that she can progress, that she can learn, that she can hopefully make a career out of, you know, what she's doing. So. So that's really exciting for me. Really, really exciting for me. And plus, I've got somebody to talk to at home, you know, about what I'm doing, who takes an interest, you know, which is.
Which is great. I've got my list here of stuff I've been doing because I can't remember anything we went to. I saw something that came up in my inbox, so I subscribed to a few different things and I subscribed to the Royal Albert hall events email because I'm desperate, or I was desperate to go and see Lord of the Rings at the Albert hall. So every time an email comes up with the Albert hall, I'm like, oh, is it there?
Is it there? Anyway, it wasn't, but Lion King popped up and it was two nights at the Albert hall, the beginning of July 6 and 7 July. I think it was. And it was the original film. I think it's. Is it 30 years. 30 years celebrating 30 years of Lion King. So it's the. The original Disney film. And it was played on the big screen at the Albert hall with a Lionesse orchestra and live gospel choir.
And I was like, right, I'm booking that. So I went with my sister, my younger sister and my two boys, and we rented this lovely apartment on Kensington High street. You'd think it would be, like, really expensive, and it really wasn't. It was four stories up. So my sister and I were, like, wheezing and the boys, like, running up and we went to see the Lion King at the Albert hall.
And it was absolutely spectacular. It was just the best thing. I literally sat there and my sister was next to me and the orchestra played all of the music. So it was even the beginning bit of the Disney bit, you know, that goes on like, da da da da da. And I just looked at her and I was like, crying. I was like, oh, my God. And she was like, oh, my God.
And it was just the best, best experience. We had the most fantastic time. Got the train down, literally. I really don't like trains because they're either late or they're cancelled. Anyway, we got on the train 20 minutes before it was due to set off, and it was definitely the right train because you do that thing, don't you, with the people on the train, you get. And you go, is this the train?
Is this the train to King's Cross? And they're like, yeah. And they go, all right, thank you. And then they go, at least I hope so. And then you're like, brilliant. But 20 minutes, you know, sitting, sat there, got your little QR code, get all of your food ordered, and then on the way back again, we were on sort of ten minutes before we'd set off. We were all rounder, you know, like four of us round a table.
It was the most fantastic weekend. We had such a lovely time. And the Albert hall is just incredible. I don't think I've ever been before, but it was amazing. It was just brilliant. We had the most fantastic time. What else have I done this month? Oh, I've done. I've been working on a big commission, which I can't share, which is really frustrating. A big commission, which is finished, it's at the framers, but I can't share it, which is a shame.
I think we all have that, don't we? Commissioned artists always have that. You know, a lot of the time we can share stuff as we're working on it, but an awful lot of the time as well is for a special birthday of Christmas or, you know, whatever. So it's really, really difficult to share. And actually, this. One of the things that I don't do an awful lot of do.
I do an awful lot of. I do. I kind of do in my membership, I know a lot about business and I do know a lot about social media and I do know a lot about marketing, so I do help people. I don't actually have any offerings at the moment for sort of business help, but one of the things that is really important to remember when it comes to social media is that not everybody sees everything.
So you might post something and you'll only have a fraction of your followers who will see it. So don't ever be scared about reposting your content. You know, it works really, really well. If you've got something that's worked well in the past, it's going to work well in the future, I would imagine. You know, I have got a. I've been working on a course. I've been working on this course for about two years.
I need to get my motivation up because I think it's a really important course. It's my, it's my business course that I've been working on for a couple of years. I think I've mentioned it before, and it's everything that I know about business and everything that I've done to create my business kind of packed into a, into a course. And it's specifically for, you know, artists, but it's, you know, when you write a course like this, it starts off as like, oh, I'll write like a short course.
And then of course it can't be short because, because people want to know the ins and outs of stuff. So then it ends up being way bigger than what it was meant to be. Anyway, I'm working on it. I've got all of the modules set out. I'm now just kind of busy sort of carving it out and, and I need to, I need to spend some time actually recording it all.
And it's difficult, you know, when you lead a busy lifestyle, it's difficult to. This is what everybody says, isn't it? I haven't got the time to do anything. I do have time. I do have time. I need to stop procrastinating. I need to actually sit down and just record it. So that's kind of on the agenda for the next couple of months, is just to get that recorded and out into the world.
Because, again, you know, it's about helping people. It really is about helping people get to grips with that if they want to make a business. I've got loads of fantastic information and tips and ways of doing stuff that will really, really help people. So I need to get that out in the world. I've got a new workshop that we put out in July. So this is my first, actually, it's not my first human workshop because we did an eye, but this workshop is all about skin tones and it sold out within 12 hours.
And we've had to create a waitlist and we've had to allocate a few more spaces to people. Honestly, I was actually really, really surprised because, you know, the majority of my followers want to draw animals. But actually, I think since I've started to draw humans, a lot of people have realised that drawing humans is really fun. And also drawing humans kind of ups your game a little bit with your animal portraits because you're learning new techniques, you know, skin tones, you know, trying to get the right colours for the skin tone, all of that kind of stuff.
So that, that was really interesting to see that so many people had joined the workshop and I'm really excited about running it as well. So I'm. I love drawing humans and I've drawn a few now and I've got a big tutorial coming up for my ignite members, which is going to be kind of over a couple of months because it's human and animal. It's going to be quite a big subject and it's going to be very, very in depth.
Before I do that, I'm hoping to work on this next weekend. I'm going to be working on some. Some skin tone tutorials. So literally just squished of different skin tones. What we forget when we're drawing humans is actually the depth of colour, the depth of the values that are in, is in the skin. And we tend to go, oh, you're, you know, you're. You're. You're caucasian or, you know, whatever.
Oh, you know, you're going to be white. But I think. I think I recall, I probably talked about this before as well. You know, if you look at my face here, there's no white or light pink or this is like dark browns and dark, you know, orangey pinks and, you know, really sort of quite dark, warm colours if you were drawing me from this video. Yeah, there's some sort of, like, light colours down here and over here, but there's some, you know, there are some really, really dark elements to skin.
And we kind of, our brain has this brilliant way of sort of filtering stuff out to help us recognise what it is that we're seeing. But when it comes to, you know, values and skin tones, that's not useful. That's actually really misleading and not helpful at all. Thank you, brain. You know, so it's about really understanding and looking at and working out the values and using, like, a value finder can be incredibly useful in that kind of, you know, when you're drawing portraits as to, well, anything.
And that's what I want to kind of bring from this. It's not going to be overly long. I'm just going to draw them in either circles or squares, part of faces, different. Different skin tones, different skin colours. And look at the pencils that you can use, because the pencils I'm using for my skin tones tend to be really quite dark. I've also started using the lightfast colours quite a bit now as well, which a lovely.
And one of my favourite colours in the lightfast range for a lighter skin tone is the cinnamon. It's like a pinky brownie colour, particularly on the rising museum board. It's worked really, really well. I've actually got the piece that I've been working on recently. It's not finished, but this is. You can see that. Oops. I don't want it to be all blurred. So this is the piece that I'm working on at the moment.
There are going to be some tweaks and everything to this. Probably a little bit of the shaping on the face down here, but you can see the skin tones here, particularly down here in the neck. You know, it's been an absolutely gorgeous piece to draw. I've absolutely loved it. I'm working on the hands at the minute, you know, so the thumb in here, there's a lot of dark colours in there, a lot of sort of pinky colours.
I've even used things like. I think I've used pink madder Lake in there in places, just as a very gentle glaze. And it's just been a really, really, really lovely piece to draw. A lovely piece to draw. I've. I've just. Honestly, I can't get enough of it, so. And this is, again, the reflections in the eyes is. It's about what you see. You know, you draw what you see, not what you think you see.
This is the rising museum board. I don't know if you can see. If I push that right up. I don't know whether it will. I don't know whether it all. But it's got. It's got quite. It's got quite a texture to it. The board, you know. Oops. Just make sure that that's focused in. It's got quite a texture to it. So you do get some texture in your drawing, which I really quite like.
And I found with the. With the bluey colours here, they almost. It's almost given, like, a watercolour effect. Those lighter bluey colours have really, really gone down so smoothly. And you can't really see any of the texture of the board coming through. You definitely can in the face. But again, I quite like that. I quite like that there's texture in it, that it's a. That it's a drawing, that it's not a perfect, you know, smooth surface.
And I think it's. I think it's worked really, really nicely. I love this board. I really like it for everything that I'm drawing on it. I just really like it. It's quite forgiving. There are certain techniques that I can't use on it, so anything to do with blending, it's all around. It's all about your pencil. So I wouldn't use a cotton bud or a paper stump or anything like that for blending.
So it's all about my pencils. And it's, you know, it takes layers, it takes an eraser. Well, it takes the scotch tape. Well, it's just a really nice surface. And I know I've spoken about it in my previous video with, where I was kind of explaining the cowgirl that I did. It's just a really, really nice surface. So, yeah, so that's. That's the other thing that I've been doing.
I can't think of anything else that I've been doing, really. It's having the. So my house has been being decorated since April, kind of on and off. It's. Oh, my goodness. It's coming to an end. Hurrah. My hallway's been done. I've been waiting for my hallway to be done forever. So I've got my lovely new cupboards in there. I've got my lovely. They've got some lovely doorknobs on there.
They look fantastic. So my cupboards are called. It's a colour called burnt cherry. So it's a very sort of dark, rich red. The walls are going to be wallpapered sort of halfway up, and then I've got some panelling that's a very, very dark green. And then my bedroom is pretty much done as well. I'm just waiting for the wall lights in there. So I haven't really decorated since 2007.
So it's been a long time coming and it's taken a long time to get it done. But finally, we're kind of coming to a point now where it's hopefully nearly all finished, but it's very disruptive, particularly if you've got people drilling and stuff like that. Especially if you're trying to run a live stream or something like that. And there was one at the beginning of July where I lost Internet access, and there was so much drilling, I had to kind of cancel one of my art clubs, which was really frustrating.
But, you know, needs must. And you can't. Well, I can't do anything without Internet access. Kind of. Oh, at the mercy of that. But, yeah. So I've. Yeah, it's been. It's been a nice July. It's been. Oh, I don't know. Oh, I wanted to tell you what I was. What I'm reading currently and what I've been. What I've been watching, if you're interested. I don't know how I've missed this, but I found because I think it was 2016 to 2019.
How I missed watching it, I have no idea. But I've been watching the Durrells on Netflix. I finished it last night and I was literally sitting sobbing. What an absolutely beautiful series. When I was younger, we spent a lot of holidays in Corfu and it was actually in around the place where the Durrells was, was filmed. And honestly, it just brought back so many memories and it was just so lovely and it's just the most beautiful series.
And I'm so sad that it's finished. I finished watching it yesterday. I've got my daughter watching it now and she's absolutely loving it as well. So if you haven't watched it, watch it. It's just fantastic. Just absolutely brilliant. And then I got, I think it was my sister. The free download on audible of Gilly Cooper's riders. Now, I read riders in the eighties when I was supposed to be revising for my o levels.
Didn't do any revision at all. I just literally read Gilly Cooper and I haven't read it for years. I think I read it again probably when I was in my twenties, but I haven't read it for years. Anyway, I'm listening to it on audible and it's hilarious and it's just like, oh, my goodness. Oh, gosh. I remember it being sort of quite racy when I was younger. It's not really anymore, you know, compared to what you.
What is out there. But it's just the sort of. I don't know, it's quite. It's quite eye opening now, you know, because of. Our world has changed quite a lot, hasn't it? And, yeah, it's quite. It's quite funny. So I'm enjoying reading, well, not reading that, but listening to that. And I'm also listening to the fast like a girl because I'm trying desperately to lose weight. Well, I'm saying I'm trying desperately to lose weight.
I'm thinking desperately to lose weight. And that's quite an interesting book as well, sort of going keto and kind of doing that intermittent fasting, which I'm hoping is going to help. So I've got all sorts of stuff on my plate, or not on my plate, as the case may be at the moment, and busy, busy looking at doing another couple of tutorials. I've got this drawing that I'm working on for myself and yeah, it's all quite busy.
I've got August, I'm going away for a couple of days down to Oxfordshire and then I'm going to the fabulous Michelle Lloyd's book launch, which I'm very excited about and once her book is out, I will be doing a full review on that and making sure that everybody buys it because it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to get that book in my hands. And then September I head off to Austin in Texas for a week, which I'm very very excited about.
And then I'm October. Now I've watched the dolls. I'm thinking I'd really like to really like to go to Corfu and I think October is probably quite a nice time to go because probably a probably a good place to stop now the dogs are all barking. Anyway, I'll see you all soon. 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. Enjoy throughout the coloured pencil world by following me on my socials at Bonny Snowdon 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.
