Motivation Archives - Liron Yanconsky

The #1 Way to Stay Motivated as an Artist | Liron’s Podcast Episode 129

In today’s episode I’m talking about the main problem I see that causes artists to lose motivation over the long run, and how to solve it (fairly easily).

Vision, Goals & Tasks

I believe many artists have a vision of where they want to be and what they want to achieve.

The fun part about being an artist is that there are basically endless possibilities.

Aside from having this vision, it’s important to connect it to smaller goals, and tasks. These are all extrapolated from the main vision.

The Disconnect

What I’ve seen happen many times is a disconnect between the mundane, daily tasks, and the grand vision.

Very often I can’t feel how what I’m doing at the moment will help me get there, and that’s a problem I know others face.

The key is to understand where the disconnect stems from, and squash it.

One option is that the daily tasks indeed AREN’T related enough to your vision and aspiration, and maybe you need to set up smarter, more efficient and effective tasks (and perhaps even goals).

Another option is that YOU don’t see the connection, despite it being there.

Make the Connection!

That’s the main idea of today’s discussion – make that connection!

The easiest way is to write your vision out, in a way that CLARIFIES without a shadow of a doubt how your actions today lead to your goals tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy this one!

Here’s how to contact me online (:

Instagram – @LironYanIL

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Twitter – @LironYan

Why Painting is SO Hard | Liron’s Podcast Episode 101

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Today I want to provide you with an encouraging perspective as to why painting accurately can be SO HARD, and talk a bit about the process of improving over time.

Painting Should Be Hard!

When you really think about it, the act of accurately putting to paper what you see is incredibly impressive!

Being able to portray a 3d object / scene in a believable, realistic or even INTERESTING manner is an amazing achievement!

With that in mind – of course painting should be hard!

Any small success should be greatly celebrated.

One of my favorite things about painting is that I may mess up 80% of the painting, but there’s a 20% I was able to REALLY nail down!

And that’s part of it.

The Learning Curve

Improving in painting is a long process. It’s not something that happens in months, but rather in years.

You can see great improvement within months, but true understanding and competence usually take longer (if you’re an anomaly – congrats!).

Here are some of the stages in my experience:

Learning the basic techniques and control of the medium
Learning to see things as accurately and cleanly as possible.
Learning to go beyond what you see verbatim, and make every subject YOUR personal impression of it.

That last stage in the list is where I’m currently striving to be.

It’s about turning the painting process into an interaction between you and the painting subject.

And that wraps up today’s episode!

Here’s how to reach out to me!

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

How to Develop a Personal Art Style – Basics & Experimentation | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 63

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Hi there, Liron here! In today’s episode I’m teaching you how you can develop your own personal art style.

Many artists strive to grow and develop their own style, but there are many myths about what it takes, and the truth is much simpler than some may think!

We’ll take a bit of a philosophical approach, but embed a lot of practicality to it!

Personal Art Style

Probably every artist you admire has their own unique art styles. Artists who work hard and attain higher and higher levels of creation, tend to also have a uniqueness to their work.

There is something very charming around a distinct art style. This leads many beginner and aspiring artists to worry about developing their own style.

Which brings me to my next point…

Unique Art Style – Don’t Assume you Don’t Have One

This is extremely important.

I want you to understand that with enough practice, repetition and experimentation, everyone develops a unique art style.

It’s inevitable.

So instead of worrying about that, let’s focus on what we can do to ensure you develop successfully as an artist (:

Fundamentals & Experimentation

The way I see it, there are two elements to improving continuously.

Working on the fundamentals / basics – This involved doing the exercises and learning the techniques that are relevant to multiple art mediums.

An example for this would be composition, color harmony, matching values (in case you are doing realistic / representational / naturalistic art) and so on.

Experimentation – This involves breaking our own patterns, using work processes that are foreign to us, trying to work in a different style, using colors we aren’t used to and so on.

Using these two together ensures your skills will grow, and your style will develop.

Remember that every experiment you do, every technique you play around with – these all add up and become a part of your style. By experimenting frequently, you widen your style’s possible spectrum of expression.

And with repeated work on the basics, you’ll ensure that your technical skills won’t deteriorate while you experiment.

This works very nicely with my concept of Inspiration & Isolation which you can read about here.

Everyone ELSE Will Recognize Your Style

I want to mention something I find amusing. Ironically, you will be the last person to recognize the uniqueness of your style.

That’s just how it goes for most people (unless it’s really unique and out there).

People started telling me about a year ago, that they could tell my paintings apart from others very easily.

I was very surprised to hear, but wasn’t able to see that myself.

Now I can better understand what they mean. There are many nuances. It’s in how you treat the edges, how your brush marks look. There are a lot of signature properties it’s hard to put in words, but easy to tell when they’re there.

Conclusion

I hope this all makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions and I’d be happy to expand on whatever you want me to (:

And with that being said, let’s move on to the Artist Corner.

Artist Corner

In today’s episode I talk about Oliver Pyle, an English watercolor painter.

Oliver specializes in natural landscapes and rural scapes. His works convey serenity and calmness that I find very relaxing.

His work also taught me a lot about conveying your message with simplicity.

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

Biggest Watercolor Painting Influences – Stan Miller, Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet & Chien Chung Wei | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 58

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Hi there, Liron here! Today I want to share with you my biggest painting influences – Stan Miller, Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet and Chien Chung Wei.

I will talk about what I learned from each one of these artists. Let’s get started!

1. Stan Miller

My biggest insight from Stan was how colors don’t matter, and it’s all about the values.

Stan Miller has so many insanely helpful YouTube tutorials, and in them he always emphasizes – if you get your drawings right and your values right – it will look realistic.

I learned the most from Stan Miller, no doubt about it.

Check out this tutorial to see what I mean: Stan Miller – Portrait Demonstration

2. Joseph Zbukvic

From Joseph I learned a lot about simplifying what I see. I learned I can manipulate things and represent them in a simpler manner that really works for the viewer.

Another thing I learned was the importance of believing in the process and allowing the painting time to come together.

I no don’t give up on ANY painting, until it’s 100% doomed haha.

3. Alvaro Castagnet

Ahhh, Alvaro. Such a unique spirit. From him I learned a few interesting things.

First – the important of contrast, or as he likes to call it – contradiction. This means having hard edges and soft edges, warm color and cool color. Conflicting elements that add interest.

One practical thing I got from him was to place cools and blues in close proximity, inside the shadows, to create interest and richness to the shadows.

Overall, my style is very different from Alvaro’s, but I do get a lot of inspiration from his uniqueness of style.

4. Chien Chung Wei

I started following Chien Chung Wei more recently, and even featured him in my newest episode of Painting Masters.

I learned to much to even explain here, so you’ll have to listen to the episode haha. Mostly I learned real skill is. His work is several folds more impressive than anything else I’ve seen.

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

Artist Corner

So today I wanted to focus on… Chien Chung Wei!

Instead of writing, though, I urge you to take a look at my most recent episode of painting masters:

This artist is really something special.

And that’s it for today, hope you enjoyed this one!

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

My 2019 Goals as an Artist | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 55

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Hi there, Liron here! Today I want to talk to you about my 2019 goals as an artist (and perhaps as a person in general!).

First off – I wanted to wish you a fantastic 2019. I hope you achieve anything you set out to. Also wishing you lots of health and happiness.

So now – let’s get started!

My 2019 goals are divided into to groups – big goals and small goals.

Big 2019 Goals

These are main, essential goals that encompass my long term vision.

1. To reach a “Godlike” level of creation.

That was the best way I found to phrase it. I want to create are that contains shards of divinity, perfection and the ideal.

In other words – I realized how important it was for me to improve my creative skills. This poses a challenge – how can I work even harder on my skills, and still be fully productive in all the other areas.

I still cannot answer that question fully. But what I do know is that this one is very important to me.

2. Complete control of my personal and business finances.

I say personal AND business, but I’m aware that the focus really is on the personal. In 2018 I created a lot of order and organization in how I manage my finances, and a part of it is getting a firm to do that for me (;

But now I want to be more in control of how much I’m actually spending, in relations to my expenses.

This is mainly so that I can save and invest for the future.

3. Share my knowledge and create a legacy.

This is a direct continuation of what I’ve been doing in the past 2 years. Only now I know exactly how to phrase it.

This is basically publishing tons of content online.

This year, however, I’ll start being more active on LinkedIn, and also get back to Pinterest, which I completely abandoned for the last two years.

There are also some other platforms I’m planning on putting more emphasis on, and I generally want to DO MORE everywhere.

Small 2019 Goals

These are smaller goals that are still important for me.

1. Become a YouTube master.

This means improving my content significantly, and becoming one of the best channels out there.

2. LinkedIn.

Already mentioned previously. But it was still important for me to write this one separately. LinkedIn has more meaning to me than just another social platform. This is a symbol of me starting to take my personal brand in a more business-related direction, and not just are.

3. Taking the interactions with my audience to a face-to-face level.

This means giving lectures and doing talks and keynotes. This will require some serious work on my part. We’ll see how it goes! (:

4. Nurturing and deepening relationships with my friends and family.

Working so hard for the past several years, I’ve always tried to ensure I balance my work with my personal relationships. This year I want to also make sure I continue developing those.

Better Way to Phrase my Vision

These goals aren’t that different from what I’ve been doing.

But I do thing they are more accurately phrased to match my long term vision. And that’s important.

The more they match it, the easier it will be for me to see the connection, and work towards them with stronger motivation.

And the workload is coming.

I started writing everything down today, and breaking down the goals into tasks. It’s remarkable how much work I’m going to have this year.

But I’m ready for it!

And now we are also ready for the artist corner.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about a Spanish artist named Manel Plana.

Manel is a watercolor painter. I was recommended to check out his work by a follower on YouTube, and boy – is he amazing!

Manel has this very loose, almost abstract impressionistic style. But it’s SO REALISTIC when you take a few steps back!

I highly recommend you check out his work on his website (he has quite an active blog, it seems!): Manel Plana

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