From Sketch to Masterpiece: Avoiding the Perfectionism Trap in Art and in Life with Bonny Snowdon

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 130. 

Now this episode is a huge treat, in my opinion, because we have my special guest Bonny Snowden on the show, I met Bonny virtually over zoom at a conference. And I just leaped to ask her to be on the show because she's just incredibly real, incredibly fascinating and great to learn from and as you'll hear me describe about four times in this episode, she is incredibly talented. Bonny is a colored pencil artist and artists mentor who found her love of creativity in 2016. After not having picked up pencils since the 80s. She now has a thriving membership helping artists all over the world to find their joy in art. And in life. I recently read listened to this episode, and I just love it so much. I can't wait for you to hear it. Let's go listen to it now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hello, everyone. Bonny Snowdon and I are here today, with tech all sorted and our energy high to help me introduce you to Bonny's genius. And to Bonny's personality and to Bonny's philosophy about work life and everything else we're gonna end up talking about Welcome to the show, Bonny.

Bonny Snowdon  2:17  
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.

Christine Li  2:22  
Oh, me too. Me too. I met Bonnie through a virtual conference. And I heard her I saw her work. And I just loved her spirit and approach to things which is very fresh. It's very authentic. It's very real. And I invited her to come on. And she kindly agreed. Bonnie is a business coach and an artist, a very fine artist, I will say and what I've seen of her work. She is a colored pencil artist, but I'm really excited to hear about all the things that she does. Bonnie, why don't you get to start it? And let us know what you'd like us to know.

Bonny Snowdon  3:03  
Yeah. Okay. So I'm Bonnie, I'm from the north of England in the UK. I am a single mum of three. And I've got loads of dogs, and a cat. And I discovered art again in 2016. So I haven't been drawing very long at all. I picked up colored pencils purely for the mindfulness. So I was a business coach. I wasn't going through a particularly great time with my marriage, and I needed something to help with mindfulness and get rid of stress. So I picked up colored pencils for coloring, adult coloring books. And it just took off from there. And I started doing commissioned pieces for people. And then because I have a very sharing nature, I love to share everything. People asked me if I was going to start teaching. So in 2019, I started teaching. And in 2021, I opened my own academy and I now have Gosh, going on with up to 3000 students who I teach how to create realistic subjects with color pencils. And that's basically what I do.

Christine Li  4:15  
That's amazing. And when Bonnie says realistic she's really meaning realistic are really imagine seeing a dog and believing that you can feel it and and touch the fur. That's the detail and beauty with which Bonnie does her work with. It's stunning. It's really stunning. So thank you, Bonnie for explaining these things. Now, it was my false assumption that you became a business coach after being an artist. So it's great for me to hear that it was the other way around. Why don't you talk about the business coach, part of your story. How did you get there? Oh,

Bonny Snowdon  4:53  
wow, this is really interesting, actually. And I think you are probably be some really So I was a, I worked in design since I was 17. So I left I did two years at art college, wanting to go on to do a fine art degree wasn't good enough. And my dad got me a job in an advertising agency as a tea girl. So at 17, I joined this small advertising agency, and I learned the old way of paste up. So we now have computers, and everything's done the computer back then it was done by hand, and computers were just starting to come through. So I learned how to do that. I then learned how to use a Mac. And I taught myself to type and I joined a big design agency. And I stayed in design graphic design, until 2014. and worked my way up, I worked for a large insurance company in the UK, and I was their studio manager. So I kind of looked after designers and account managers. And I think a lot of people find this when you move up the ranks in a company, particular big company, you don't always get the training, you don't always know how you fit into that role. You just become good at what you do. And you get promoted. So I was promoted into a managerial position having never been a manager before. Then I guess what I did was I looked around and I saw how other managers managed or how I thought other managers managed and I kind of replicated what they were doing, then it it wasn't a good. I wasn't a good manager, back then. I was not a good manager. I thought I was I thought I was good. I was very passionate about what I was doing. I was very passionate about what Pete I wanted people to do. And I don't know whether you have these, we had them back then in corporate you have these things called 360s. The horrible

Christine Li  6:44  
Yeah, I understand what you're saying, yeah, these situations where you interview everyone in your orbit.

Bonny Snowdon  6:51  
Yeah, yeah. And everybody gives their feedback, that I didn't have good feedback at all. I didn't have good feedback. And I could have gone one of two ways I could have gone. Everybody doesn't know what they're talking about. And what's the problem is I'm a brilliant manager, or I could have taken that feedback and gone, oh, gosh, I need to do something, either change how I manage, I change how I believe by manage, or I'm out of a job. So I decided to do a coaching degree, I paid for it myself, put me through myself through a coaching degree. And I became a qualified business coach, I'd done a one day session with the with the chap, the company that I actually did my degree with, I'd done a one day session, I used to ride horses as well. And I did a one day session on confidence. And all of these different models came through that had a huge effect on me huge effect on me stuff that I hadn't, I'd never sort of touched on before. And these were all of the models that came through in the coaching degree that I did. And I went on to work for this company who I took the degree with. And I was working overseas, I was working in the UK, and I absolutely loved it and working with people. And I think the thing that I got most out of the degree wasn't that I could then go on to do a different career and help people. It was what I learned about myself. I learned how to reflect I learned how to put myself into it, you know, I always thought I was empathetic. But actually I never put myself in other people's shoes. I never looked at it from a different perspective. It was always well, this is what I think I'm passionate about it, this is what I'm doing. And that is not a good way to get on in the world at all. So that said massive, massive effects on me. And I became a business coach, I learned all of the different, you know how to coach people, I got a huge amount of joy out of that job seeing people improve in their situations, you know, whether it was coaching them through a situation coaching them out of a job, all of that I absolutely loved it. And now that has brought a completely different dimension into my teaching of helping people draw realistic subjects. Because not only am I helping them, draw realistic subjects and given them techniques and we do this and we use this current blah, blah, blah. I'm also bringing that coaching element and I'm also bringing the you know, have you tried looking at it from this perspective? Oh, well, you know, you've just started you were really excited last month now you're feeling you know, really despondent, everything's going wrong. Can I just explain why this is happening? And it's not it's not I mean, there's a little bit of psychology in there, which you kind of get with the coaching training. But it just all creates this fantastic bundle if you like. People don't just need to know how to put mark on the page. Are, they need to know why they feel like they feel the pain when things don't go, right? Why they sit in front of a blank piece of paper and think I can't draw any more. You know, it's all of those things. And that's what I bring to my teaching, I call it well, it's confidence, I like to bring confidence. And I like to help people just sort of switch their mindset a little bit. And I think that business coaching side of stuff has been so beneficial to how I teach, because it has a different dimension, you know, and that's why I say that I teach people I say, I teach people color pencil, actually, the biggest thing that I do is I help increase their confidence, that that's what I do. And it's it's huge, you know, people who are looking to be creative again, when they haven't touched any kind of art material, since they were at school, like, like me, it can be really daunting, and it can be really scary. And actually having somebody there holding their hand, just encouraging them, telling them that this is completely normal that you know, everybody feels like this. It just increases our confidence a little bit and it gets them creating. And it's the creating side that is so so, so important.

Christine Li  11:16  
This is so fun to tell, listen to your story. And I have multiple reactions, of course. One is that you've been through a lot, Your journey has been rich, and windy, and really meaningful, personally meaningful. And I love that you're just sharing everything that you've learned, in return that you've you've gotten a lot from your education and your experience, and you're ready to just bring everyone with you write for confidence ride for a boost for a better perspective. And for better art. In the end, I'm just sure. Could you describe the part of you that maybe just wants to resolve the problem figured out the the issue? Because when you were stuck in that manager position, feeling like people were not looking at your work favorably what part of you said, Okay, let me go and figure this out. Can you describe that a little bit more?

Bonny Snowdon  12:23  
I think it was a complete shock, to be honest. And I think having that complete shock getting this report back and seeing in writing what people were thinking about, and it wasn't about me personally, it was about my management style. And I think looking at that, that was sort of like a pivotal point for me, because it was very clear from that report, that if I didn't change, then probably wasn't going to be a job for me. I mean, it wasn't in writing. But this is, you know, I was I was I'm quite intuitive. And that's what I was getting, you know, from that. And I think there was there was a lot of the I mean, I can't remember exactly how I think I was very disappointed. And sad. Because I actually really love my job. And I think at that point, it was probably a case of well, okay, or the do something about this, you know, it's there. There's evidence that what I've been doing is not right. Or I go and look for another job. And I actually really liked my job. And I really liked my team. But you know, I thought this is actually an opportunity for me to develop as a person. I mean, how old was I? That was back in 20? Oh, gosh, 20. I must have been about 4040 must have been no one was oh, I can't remember anyway. It was I think it was a chance for me to go. Do you know what I can do this. And this actually could be run that being a really rific experience. This could be where by actually can become a much better person. And that I think was that that point where I was just like, right, let's see how I can make a change here. Because clearly a change needed to be made. You know, everybody was lying there. Yes, you know,

Christine Li  14:35  
the words that come to mind our growth mindset that you didn't feel the need to stay stuck at that level or with those behaviors or with that feedback that you saw that as a jumping off point for your life. May I ask about the empathy piece that you spoke about just after talking about that? 360 And you said, Well, you thought that you were being empathic, but it turns out, you actually weren't acting empathically until you were made aware of what was involved. Can you describe your thoughts about how that came to be and how you made that bridge?

Bonny Snowdon  15:12  
Yeah, you see. So it's funny because I come across as a very confident person. But actually, I'm not really, as a child, I really wasn't very confident at all. And I'm much happier, on the other side of the screen, or in my own company, I'm really happy in my own company, or in a group of people who I know. And I think, I don't think I had a problem with understanding people. But when you then get put into a position where you're managing a group of people, and some of those people don't think the same as you, Rena, we had quite a diverse team. People were very different personalities. And I guess, because I purposefully always stuck to a small group of people who I knew very well, and who probably had very similar personalities. To me, it was very easy to understand what other people were thinking and how other people were feeling. When it puts into a bigger, wider team, I guess you have to take the time to understand other people. And I don't, I didn't take the time to understand those people, you know, I was putting a job, it was a full on job, I mean, I was looking after a p&l or 2 million p&l, I was I was doing, you know, month and I was doing all the forecasting all of the stuff that I hate, at figures a me do not, they don't get on. So it was quite stressful. Obviously, I wanted to do it because it was a it was promotion, but it was quite a stressful job to put in that position, and then have to kind of work with people and understand them, I think I put more into the doing the, the the actual doing of the job, rather than making a point of understanding the people. And, and it was when, obviously, when I'd had this the feedback, I really started to understand how very important it is to really get to understand how other people work to be able to work with them, you know, in a in a nice way, it is really important to understand that and I can't tell you, I mean, if I have a switch, if I had a switch in front of me to demonstrate how this coaching just changed everything for me, the switch would be huge. I mean, it wouldn't be a little, you know, a wall switch, it would be this massive, and it'd be like, you know, literally getting older and going. It made an enormous, enormous impression on me. And it was like part of my brain hadn't been being utilized. I know this sounds really strange because and it makes me sound as if I was a horrible person. And I really wasn't a horrible person, I was exactly the same person as I am now. But then wasn't that understanding of you know, you, everybody has a different view of the world. How I view the world is very different to how you view the world, I can walk down the street with somebody, and I can be you know, half this is lovely, and sons, sons out birds are singing, the person next to me, which was very much like my husband was can be completely paranoid and think everybody's looking at him. And oh, my goodness, this is so stressful. We're in exactly the same environment. But we see it very, very differently. And I didn't. I didn't know that. But it wasn't as it wasn't a real proper understanding, I think, until I had gone through all of that training. I went through the training, and I was like, Oh, my goodness, we need to put this into schools. Children need to learn this. Because I tell you what, the world would be so much nicer if everybody understood these models. And you know why this happened and reflect on things and all of that sort of stuff? Yeah. So I guess it was a it was a it was something that was there. But it wasn't something that I concentrated on?

Christine Li  19:10  
Yes. I deeply agree with you about the education piece that we should actually bring this mindset work this confidence, work this empathy work into our schools at every level, I believe, and I think it's sorely lacking. So thank you for mentioning that. So when I listen to you, I think not only of growth mindset, I also think of flexibility that we can all benefit from understanding that there's flexibility everywhere, even when we don't believe there is there's always another way of looking at things. There's always another person's viewpoint. And our reality can actually shift quite rapidly if we allow it to. So this is a message for anyone listening, who might be feeling stuck, who might be feeling like they're not good at something and who might be feeling like this is the dead and of the dead end that really, maybe borrow some coaching, maybe borrow an art course, maybe borrow a podcast episode and expand your view so that you have a little bit more room for you to grow into yourself grow into a new perspective, there's always options. Thank you so much for describing your journey. That's like it. All right. Now, if you don't mind, can we talk about your art? Because it is so brilliant. It's really otherworldly, almost. I will say it's otherworldly. It's so unreal how you capture this detail. And it makes me think about the concentration that must be required to get that level of detail, but also the patience. And can you talk about these kinds of factors? And what's involved in your art?

Bonny Snowdon  20:56  
Yes, yes, I can. So the medium I chose to use and I only use one medium, it gets very, get very funny about, I feel really guilty if I pick up any other medium. So color pencil is my medium color pencil is the slowest medium. Bots are really twos, you know, little stacks of colored wax, or is wax and oil based. They they're hard. You know, they're not like the pastels, they're not chalky, they don't the pigment doesn't come out freely. And to get to a point of you can use them for all sorts of different art genres. But I've been for me, it's realism. And it's all about the less you have to let layer everything up. So it takes a long time. Now, you would think that I am the most patient person and you would think that I am the most what's the word organized, I suppose if I'm if I'm doing my life is so chaotic, you wouldn't believe in just utter chaos. I will describe my kitchen table. So I have three grown up children. I mean, my oldest is 23. My youngest is 18. They all live at home. So I have the three sort of, you know, grown up children, I've got four dogs, three of them are large a big dogs. And I have a cat that has taken she just lives on the kitchen table. So she chooses a box every now and again. And that's where she lives. So she loves to look at the kitchen table is just, if you've got something to put down, it goes on the kitchen table and it gets piled high, and then it gets moved away and it goes somewhere else. I've always been a messy person. But I with my mess, I know where everything is. So I'm quite I am quite organized. But it does get to a point sometimes where I'm like, I can't cope with all this mess, I have to just, you know, chuck it all out. So my life is totally chaos, I rebel against any kind of structure. And I think being organized, which is not a good thing when you're trying to run a business, particularly if you have a team who you know are working with you. And particularly if you're wanting a life where you can do lovely things. Because if you're not organized, then it all gets a little bit messy. So my life actually is incredibly organized. But every now and again, I have like a bit of a blowout and I rebel against it and I get chuck everything out of my diary. But I've chosen the most controlled medium that you could possibly get. Apart from maybe something like pyrography or you know, something like that. It's a really, really controlled medium you control every single stroke that goes down, you choose how your colors allowed. It takes a long time, you know, so I'm drawing a wall at the moment. And last night I drew the four A's quite big but I drew the forehead and it took me you know, four hours to get anything like where I wanted to get to so it takes a long time. A piece can take anywhere between 20 to 70 hours even more if it's a big piece. And it's the complete opposite of how I as a person complete opposite. Yeah, I'm very laissez faire. I'm very laid back. I have the face that everything will be fine. Everything will turn out fine. Even if it's something horrific, it'll be fine. It'll all work out very last a fair very you know, I don't kind of worry about stuff overly. But my medium is I think where I can channel the control that that's where the control in my life comes from. That's where I can control my life. You know, because I feel like I don't have much control outside of it but I can completely control my pencils. I can completely control what goes on the paper. But funnily enough, because when you look at my pieces you think oh my goodness it look all of that detail or she spent ages doing it. Oh gosh, all of that concentration. What I've got to the point is In, and how I now create my pieces, the underneath layers, the layers that I start with a very loose and very sketchy because animals and alive, obviously, sir has is is living it's it is alive, it's got movement in it. And if you're really, really specific with your pencil strokes and you're really controlled with all of your pencil strokes, you lose that little bit of life. So all of my underlays are quite loose, I draw quite quickly. But actually, I don't draw quite quickly, I my fingers just move really quickly. But I, what I don't do is I don't look at a photograph and copy every single detail from the photograph, you might look at my drawing, and you might look at the photo and you go, Oh my goodness, it's exactly the same, it is far from being exactly the same. What I'll do is I'll take a first say we're drawing an animal, take the fur, and I'll look at the fur. I'm a big visualizer. So I visualize vision. And I visualize fields. So I'm very feely person. And I feel all of the pencil strokes that go down on the paper. And I know when I'm using different pencils because they feel different. And I use one no one I use different surfaces because they feel different. But I visualize the fur in my head. And I visualize the feel, how does it feel. And then my pencil strokes replicate how it feels. So if it's if I'm drawing a spaniel here, for example, my pencil strokes are going to be really lovely and long and sort of languid, and soft and silky. If I'm drawing, say something that's got quite spiky fur. So like a quarter horse, a cop horse, where it's got quite sort of sharp for quite quite briskly for, then my pencil strokes are going to be more bristling, it's all going to come from the feel in my hands. So it's all about feelings all about vision. And that's also how I choose my colors. So all of my color mixing is done in my head, which is is quite tricky to teach. Because people want to know exactly what colors I'm going to be putting down how to mix the colors, all of that kind of thing. And for me, I have, it's almost like a little mini film going on in my head. And I'll look at a color. And I'll go right, how am I going to get because you can't just pick a color, say Brown, it's a brown horse. You can't just go oh, that's Brown, I'll just pick a brown, although that's how I did start up. What I now do is I look at that Brown, I think how can I mix that brown to make it a really lovely vibrant Brown, it's going to look great on the page. So I'll have colors that float into my head. And I go, Well, I'm gonna use you know, I'll use blue an awful lot in my brain. So I'm going to use like a dark indigo, I'm gonna use a warm up brand, I'm gonna use a cup of water violet, which is really dark red, I'm going to mix those up. And I know that that's going to give me a really vibrant, Rich Brown. And obviously, I'll kind of keep this in my head for further reference. I've got like these recipes in my head. But that's how I mix colors and they mix my colors on the paper rather than if you're a, you know, a painter, you tend to mix your colors on the palette and then kind of you know, for me, I don't do any swatching. I find I don't know whether you've seen artists do swatches where they get a piece of paper and they just color all of their colors. And that for me is the biggest form of procrastination going. Not for me is like I'm too scared to start a drawing. I'm going to swatch all my colors. Yeah, yeah,

Christine Li  28:46  
I think I've seen other forms of procrastination, but I understand where you're, you're say and I love that your work is so perfect. And yet you're describing that the process is it's just this organic flowy non hyper intentional, personal and feely process and I can't stop from thinking that there must be some perfectionist in your crowd. No,

Bonny Snowdon  29:24  
they are not a perfectionist. You're

Christine Li  29:26  
not one but not like students are the students can you talk about that because your your art really everyone I keep talking about this art but it's just glam, glam, glam beautiful. And really this feeling of perfection and so I would imagine at least some of your, the audience that you attract are looking for the perfect answer, the perfect technique, and what do you do when you have people feeling the need for hyper control and high intense To decontrol,

Bonny Snowdon  30:01  
yeah, that and that is a that's a really, really good question. And it comes up time and time again, because this is what stops people from moving forward. They want to make it perfect. We can't make anything perfect is, is is there? Isn't it perfect. Once you've done it perfectly, you don't need to do it again, do it, because it's done perfect. For me, perfect doesn't come into it. I, I said before, I'm quite lost, say for now. So I'm very laid back. Yes, I will spend time and I'll have visualized what I want someone to look like, and I'll spend time getting it there. If it goes wrong. Or if it doesn't work out quite how I want it to. I will either make a plan and get it to where I want it to be. Or I look at it. And I'll go actually to know what is fine. There's nothing wrong with it is absolutely fine. Yeah, that bit that could have been a bit better. But I'm just going to move on now. You know, it's absolutely fine in the whole scheme of things when the whole thing is finished, who's going to notice that nobody, so it doesn't matter. But what happens is I get a lot of students who get stuck on that need to get it perfect. So they'll they'll get stuck on one particular part of a piece. And they'll get really, really frustrated. And it almost it even stops people from drawing, they just put their pencils down, they say I can't do it anymore. It's so frustrating, I can't do any more, I need it to be perfect. So I have in my membership, I have a monthly confidence session. And I bring all of these different elements into the competence session. And I try to help people get over the perfectionism just by just by showing them that you don't have to be perfect though. They, they they're with me all of the time. I mean, I'm in I'm in my group, I'm you know, we draw live every week, they know that if something doesn't quite go, right, I don't get really upset or fed up. So hopefully what I'm doing is I'm showing them that you don't have to be perfect. And actually perfectionism is just the absolute, it kills all joy, you know, we're here to really enjoy the, the process of drawing is the most amazing thing because it takes you somewhere else takes you, you know, you were talking about other worlds, but it takes you into a different world, it completely does, I very often find myself almost waking up. When I've been drawing and I looked down I think, oh, that's done. You literally go somewhere else. And if I was being perfect, and like getting really frustrated with you know, one peak, I wouldn't ever get into that flow, I wouldn't ever get into that place where everything is just, you know, happening. And this is what I try to teach. And I try to show by example, it's very difficult. I think when somebody has a personality where that that perfectionism is very much part of their personality, it's very much seated in their beliefs and their values. So for me, it's about showing by example, showing how we don't have to be perfect, encouraging them, you know, when they're putting something and couldn't get this right. And I can show them all of the things that you know, they have got, right, that's something that I do, I critique my my members work. I do 25 critiques a week, which is a lot I've done, I've done my 25 today, and I love critiquing people's work, because you can see how fabulously people are drawing and how they're developing. And what's really nice is that I can, I can teach people how to self critique as well, not to, you know, critique so bad that they're literally pulling the whole piece apart. But self critique is about bringing out what's worked really well. And then what you need to work on not what hasn't worked well. So it's what's worked really well and I'm proud of, what do I need to develop? What do I need to work on? What did I find more challenging, and the vocabulary I think, is incredibly important. You know, the vocabulary we use goes into our head, then comes back as self talk. And if we can use lovely vocabulary for ourselves for our self talk, then we're far more likely to get into better results when we start doing the drawing. So teaching them to do their self critique, to always pick out the good stuff, always pick up the good stuff. You know, even if it was I started it and I finished it. That's really great stuff. And then everything in between, you can work on and you can develop. And I think it's really important to you know, just to share that with my students and let them know that it's a it's a journey. I know that sounds very cliched, but it is a journey. It's a path we're all on and we have to enjoy it. You know, because otherwise, what's the point?

Christine Li  35:03  
What is the point? Now ladies and gentlemen, you've just heard and witnessed why I needed to have Bonnie on the show, her attitude is so real and so perfect, for lack of a better word, it's just really kind of an attitude that I really connect with. And I try to avoid the perfectionistic tendencies within myself. And I try to help other people as well, to see that there are so many different options, or so many different ways of improvement without feeling like you're in a deficit spot that you have so much to, to, to fix in yourself that it really doesn't have to be like that. It could just be like, well, what can I do next? And how can I deepen my skill? And how can I share my perspective in a way that will help another person, that there are all these different positive avenues? for growth? Absolutely. Even in the worst of circumstances? I think?

Bonny Snowdon  36:06  
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You know, and I've been through some pretty rubbish times, in the last, you know, I've come from, you know, a marriage that wasn't, wasn't great. You know, we were emotionally abused, which I, I see myself as being quite a strong person, I'm highly resilient. But I kept to all kept it all locked away. And actually, that wasn't a great thing to do. And it's, and it's only recently, within the last couple of years that I've been sort of, you know, telling people more about this, because I want it I was almost embarrassing that I had been through this sort of situation, you know, and I think that's a, that's a big part of where I am now. And I started my academy, and it is successful is really successful. And I was talking to somebody the other day, and she had been through some, you know, some awful times. And it was almost like, yes, we've been through the horrible times. But actually, we've learned so much from those horrible times. They haven't, they haven't, they're not my it's not my story. You know, it happened to me. But I've learned from it, and the work that I've had, because of that has brought out so much more, you know, so I was it therapy, probably therapy, coaching, you know, whatever. But I had to have some because I realized that things weren't weren't great. And if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have had the same path would I you know, so it is, as much as there's never a silver lining when you know, you're being abused. And I mean, he was very poorly, you know, suffered dreadfully from depression, and you live with somebody who's got depression. It's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. People talk about it's horrific for the person having depression. And it you know, it really is that when you have to tread on eggshells, it's absolutely awful. I mean, it's just, it's just horrible. You know, I'm very sadly, the 2020 those comments 23 years ago, he took his own life, which was really sad. He wasn't, he wasn't with me then. But again, you know, I really needed help. From mass. Yes, yeah, having that help, has enabled me to become a better person, to become a more understanding person to be able to have even more understanding for my students, because my students, you know, they're not all, you know, roses. And, you know, they're, they've gone through an awful lot as well, a lot of people pick up creativity, because they've had all sorts of trauma in their life, and they pick this creativity, and being able to understand that I think is incredibly important. So we think, yeah, it's really helped me this deeper self work has really, really, really helped, I think, to get to, you know, to where I am now, because it's given me more tools. You know, I talked about being very visual. So I can, I can visualize what I want to do in the future, I can visualize how I want to feel I can visualize how I want to live. And I can put myself in that place. And I can feel what it feels like, and it feels fantastic. And then that gives me the motivation to actually put things in place to be able to get where I want to be. And I couldn't have done that without having gone through all of this awfulness before.

Christine Li  39:23  
Yes, I'm thinking about that moment when you decided to pick up a colored pencil. And that must have been quite a juncture in your life. And I'm so grateful that you've been able to create so much beauty and wisdom and joy from the laissez faire approach and from all the coaching and the growth and the work that you've done within yourself and also with your community. I want to thank you also for sharing your work and your wisdom with us today. I feel like joyful to know you and I feel like I'm Going to give to your Academy membership to a few people and maybe even take part myself. Can you please explain how I would love to stay connected? I will stay connected with you, I am sure, yeah, but your art again, it's just so good.

Bonny Snowdon  40:16  
You're so sorry a second. So well, if you want to have a look at my work, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram and it's body Snowden Academy. And then my website is Bonnie Sidon academy.com, my membership have loads of free stuff. So if anybody's out there wanting to just have a go, I've got loads of free stuff, loads of sort of mini tutorials about 40 minutes long, that just gets you going. Even if you haven't got like, you know, you can just use printer paper and your children's crayons or your grandchildren's cars, you know, you can use anything, and I've done them that way just to get people you know, starting to be creative. And then my I take new members on every sort of three months into the academy. So the next opening is April, beginning of April, that I take new members on.

Christine Li  41:04  
Okay, terrific. I'm also seeing one of your one of the dogs. Yeah.

Bonny Snowdon  41:11  
Been very good.

Christine Li  41:12  
Yeah, yeah, no, I have two large dogs of my own. And they somehow seem to know that when podcasting, we need to tell so we're lucky. We're lucky women. So I feel very lucky to know you, Bonnie, thank you so much for being

Bonny Snowdon  41:27  
Oh, my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Christine Li  41:31  
Alright, everyone. Explore your creativity, explore your deeper self. Explore the part of you that can let go some of the constraints that you might have in your day or in your mind and come back and visit me on the show next week. It's the Make Time for Success podcast. Thank you so much for being a listener. Bye! 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. We'll talk to you soon!

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