Artistic Career Archives - Page 2 of 7

Can Anyone Become a Successful Artist | Liron’s Podcast Episode 95

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Hi there! In this episode I’m discuss the question – can anyone become a successful artist?

My general answer is YES, with a few caveats.

Here’s what we’ll talk about:

Definition
Internal Challenges
Talent and Skill
Financial Success

1. Definition

A big thing to think about, is how do you define success?

I believe success is ultimately happiness. This means that if you have a job you love, and you make art on the side and are happy – you won!

So YES – anyone can become a successful artist if you look at it from this angle.

2. Internal Challenges

Many people I meet and talk to have INTERNAL obstacles only. They don’t believe in themselves, and this prevents them from creating.

Art is ultimately self-expression. I’d like more people to understand that if they WANT to create – they should. The rest doesn’t matter.

3. Talent and Skill

Even talent and skill are in question. You see plenty of artwork that doesn’t necessarily have a lot of skill behind it, that is still successful, and celebrated in museums and galleries.

The word “skill” is arguable in and of itself. Who says, for example, that an abstract painting that took only a few brush strokes to make does’t require skill?

And if so many people say – “I could have done it” – well – why didn’t you?

Food for thought, especially if you feel judgmental of these types of works (which I know can be fun sometimes, haha!).

4. Financial Success

This is a little trickier. I do think different people have different potentials for money-making.

BUT, could almost anyone create SOME financial success around their art? I believe so. You just have to figure out your true gift, and the format.

Are you a good teacher? Manager? Story-teller?

Perhaps you are SO OFF THE CHARTS when it comes to art, that you should focus ONLY on that, and hire people to do the rest (which for most people would mean have friends help out, as not a lot of people can actually really hire someone when just getting started).

In Conclusion…

Yes, that is my answer. If you are having doubts, or are unsure – use this podcast as permission to AT LEAST believe it’s POSSIBLE.

And let me know if you have any questions or there’s anything I can help you with.

Here’s how to contact me:

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

I’m Back from New York & November 2019 Plans! Liron’s Podcast Episode 93

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Hi there! In this episode I want to give you a quick update on my New York experience (that’s been awesome by the way!). I’m also talking about my plans and focus for November 2019.

Here’s a VERY QUICK conclusion of what I talked about…

New York (and Ohio) Experience

Had a great time and visited most important spots.
Ate a lot of bagels and pizza!
Visited most of the museums (MET, MOMA, Guggenheim, Frick Collection, The New Museum, The Natural History Museum and some more…).
Visited different neighborhoods in Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn and a bit of Queens.
Met a couple of friends we made in the past.
Took 2 walking tours in the south of Manhattan and Chinatown.
Saw the statue of liberty by taking the ferry to Staten Island (then immediately ran inside to catch the ferry back – we spent literally 43 seconds on the island!)
Went to see the Joker movie in a really cool, “vintage”, hipster theater.
Then visited my uncle and family in Ohio, which was a GREAT way to wind down after NY.
Then had a really horrible experience with American Airlines on the way back.

Overall this has been a great experience, and I definitely plan on coming back in the future.

Plans for November 2019

One of my main focuses – The Plein-Air Challenge – Starting every day with a plein-air session.
TikTok! Posting TONS of content there!
Starting to build a proper online gallery for selling my artwork
Sleep, health, workouts and nutrition
Brainstorming a new course
Experimenting with finalizing watercolor paintings without glass

Excited for this one. Not much left for 2019, and I want to make the most out of it!

Going Back to Work

Coming from a month-long vacation is an interesting experience. I’ve had it last year too (spent August in Ohio).

This time, however, it was more of a mix. On the one hand I felt happy to come back.

But on the other hand – it started getting dark earlier, which always makes me sad for the short transition period between seasons. I also felt like I’ll miss some of the freedom.

This is why I decided to not go back to work immediately, but rather spend a couple of days easing into it, and feeling again what it’s like to be on VACATION, but while AT HOME. It was actually a really smart move, and helped me get back on track better.

I’m now really into the routine, and despite working longer hours for the past couple of days – I feel connected with my goals and vision.

I’ll definitely keep you updated on how it goes.

Take care, and I’ll talk to you again soon.

Want to Reach Out?

Got any questions? Want help with your paintings? Feel free to reach out to me in any of the platforms I’m on, and I’ll be happy to help (:

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

How to Sell Your Artwork | Liron’s Podcast 74

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Want to learn how to sell artwork?

I’m starting to sell mine at a local art fair here in Tel Aviv, in the Nachalat Binyamin street.

This is an art fair for hand-crafted art only, so no prints or machine made items. It’s backed by the city’s municipality and has been active for more than 30 years, if I’m not mistaken.

My first time there will be this Friday (17/05/2019), and I’m very excited to get started!

Why I Joined The Fair

I submitted my work for the fair for two main reasons.

1. I wanted to experience selling my artwork, face to face.
2. I wanted to start “getting” rid of the tons of paintings I have here (;

Selling Artwork Mistakes

Today I want to the fair (active every Tuesday and Friday) to do my homework and perhaps gain some insights.

I got to see many of the cliches of artists who aren’t good salespeople. I noticed two main issues:

1. Too pushy – Some booths I simply stopped by and started taking a look. The artist would immediately start talking about their art. This is nice to hear, had I asked a question. But I didn’t.

I’d much rather the salesperson to ask ME how my day is, or just do light chit chat.

I didn’t ask about the type of wood used in the artworks, and frankly didn’t care haha. Not to be mean – but I’m honestly less interested in the particular type of crafts this salesperson had. I’m sure there are many others who would though.

2. Too laid back – this was probably the most common theme of the fair. I’ve seen so many artists simply sitting behind their table, waiting for a client to drop by and make the sale for them.

I don’t think you should jump people who pass by, but some presence needs to be made. I’ve seen several booths (that actually had beautiful artworks in them) that no one stopped by, simply because the salesperson was very passive.

Selling Artwork – What I Hope to Get

What I hope to get out of this is to improve my sales skills. I want to become a better salesperson, especially face to face.

I will definitely keep you updated on how it goes.

Artist Corner – Daniel Marshall

Today I talked about Daniel Marshall, an American watercolor painter and tattoo artist!

I became familiar with his work thanks to one of my followers on YouTube, directing me to check it out.

If you love the same artists as me, you’ll probably immediately notice how Dan’s work very closely-resembles the work of Joseph Zbukvic.

I may be wrong about this, but I believe he also studied under him, at some point.

I recommend you check out his website and artworks here: Daniel Marshall

And Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

— Liron

Drawing Fundamentals – Shape, Volume & Mass | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 61

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Liron here! And today I want to tell you about me going back to the drawing fundamentals, and sharpening my pencil-related skills (pun intended).

Why Fundamentals

I’ve known for a long while now that what makes a piece of art really communicate with the viewer on a deeper level – is usually not the glitz and glamour.

Usually it’s good mastery of the fundamentals of art. Those would be composition, form, value, colors and so on.

Artists Teaching the Fundamentals

I recently also started exposing myself to artists and teachers that focus on the fundamentals.

This really awakened something in me that wants to revisit this ideas, strengthen my understanding and control of them, and incorporate them in my artwork (mainly watercolor painting).

If I really want to become the best I can, this is an integral part of the deal.

What Fundamentals I’ll Focus on

Here are some of the main fundamental principles / techniques I plan on working on: Pencil and line control, shading, volume and mass, simplification, working from direct observation, creating a sense of depth and more.

I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks, and am already very excited about the results. I feel like this is the right decision for now.

Scheduling Fundamentals Practice

This is going to be the real challenge. I need to somehow carve up more time for pure practice and working on my skills.

This is already a challenge as it is, but I’ll get it to work. It’s at least as important for me to work on the quality of my art, as the rest of my daily tasks.

And by the way, I plan on continuing with the normal routine on YouTube. However, I may share new insights as I learn them. Especially if I feel like something is significant enough.

And with that being said, let’s move onto the Artist Corner!

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Marcos Beccari, an extremely skilled watercolor painter based in Brazil.

He paints what I would call hyper-realistic watercolors. His subjects are mainly the female figure and water.

It’s incredible and I highly recommend you check him out. Here’s his Instagram to get you started: @marcosbeccari

Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron

Real-Time Narrated Painting Tutorials – YouTube Experiment Results | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 60

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Hi there, Liron again here! Today I want to share with you my recent YouTube experiment – posting only real-time narrated painting tutorials – and talk about the results.

Let’s get going!

YouTube Experiment

Over the last few months, many viewers mentioned how what they are missing are full painting tutorials. Meaning – they didn’t want time-lapse vids. They wanted to hear my thoughts as I painted.

Following these requests, I decided to give this a try for six videos, which are two weeks.

This means that for the past two weeks, I’ve been only posting longer (40+ minutes) tutorials.

Feedback I Got

The vast majority of feedback was very positive. People were commenting how hearing my thought process is really useful, and how real-time allows them to follow along the action.

On the other hand, there were probably one or two comments saying how the videos are too long, and how they preferred shorter vids.

Results on YouTube

This is more about my YouTube analytics. I noticed several interesting things here.

First, one of the videos has done really well, gaining over 10K views. This is a lot for me, as I average at around 2K views, I would say.

Aside from that one, two other videos show some promise, and will perhaps gain more views with time.

I did see an immediate increase in watch time, which makes sense – as I was posting much longer videos.

But with that, there were also more views in general. This could be attributed to the 10K views video, but I’m not sure about that.

Also, I did notice an increase in subscribers growth, which was very slow for a while now. I averaged for a while around 40-50 new subs a day, and then increase temporarily moved the average to around 70, with the peak at 100+.

These are great results.

YouTube Channel Future Direction

My main insight from this experience was that I MYSELF am interested in variety. After such a long time period of posting only these longer videos, I started craving making shorter videos.

Another insight was that you can’t please everyone, which is 100% okay. So I might as well do what interests me.

My plan is to now incorporate what I learned over the last two weeks into my routine. We’ll go back to the normal series (The Paint Show, Painting Masters), but I’ll also try and do at least 1-2 full processes every two weeks.

Conclusion

I hope this experiment pushed the needle a little more in the direction of me improving as an artist and a teacher. And I’ll keep you updated on future experiments and new ideas I get.

And now, it’s time for today’s Artist Corner!

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Jasmine Huang, an incredible Taiwanese watercolor painter.

Her paintings have a beautiful realistic vibe to them. She uses a very unique color palette and is very well-versed in wet-in-wet.

Coincidentally, she is also the wife of Chien Chung Wei, who I featured in a recent episode of Painting Masters. I believe I will dedicate an episode to her as well (:

The best place to check out here work would be Facebook:
Jasmine Huang on Facebook

Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron