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

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

Freedom in Painting – My Biggest Personal Artistic Insight | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 59

Today I want to tell you about my biggest personal artistic insight, regarding freedom and patience in painting (and creating in general).

Freedom & Patience

A few weeks ago I sat down with one of my best friends to do our yearly plans for 2019.

We don’t do resolutions, we do actual detailed and elaborate plans. The conversation we had led me to realize there’s one thing that’s really missing in my artistic life at the moment.

And seeing as art is about 85% of my life at the moment… that’s a major problem.

What’s missing is real freedom and patience when creating.

Goal-Oriented Me

So i’m very goal oriented.

This led me to always limit my creation time (painting, sketching etc.). After all, it’s only one of my many daily tasks.

The problem is – I wasn’t allowing myself enough time to really experiment. To create with freedom, patience. Deliberate experimentation is something that was really missing.

I was missing my artistic freedom.

Freedom & Experimentation

What I want to be able to do is go on side-tangents when creating.

Maybe I’ll be working on a finished painting, and I’m about to paint a person. I’d like to have the freedom to pause, take out a piece of test paper and jot down multiple sketches and paintings of the person I’m about to paint.

Maybe I’d like to try out different ways of painting them. Wet-in-wet, wet on dry, dry brush, etc.

But I wasn’t allowing myself to do that, as I am always aware of my time constraints. And I have tons of other stuff to do. Work on content, work on my sales funnel, the Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Instagram stories and… a barrage of other things.

Freedom as a Major Goal For 2019

I realized that I’ll have to force myself to do this. To give myself permission to have more freedom. To experiment more freely.

And so I decided to mark that as one of my main focuses for 2019.

I want to do “quarantined” creation days, in which my only “obligation” is to paint, sketch and experiment.

I want to reach that all-time level of art, and become one of the biggest artists of our time (and perhaps not just our time).

To get there, I will have to give myself permission to do this.

What would it look like if it was easy / fun?

This is an idea I’ve been toying around with lately, when things like that challenge me. I got this from Tim Ferris’s video on asking questions better.

Whenever something like this poses a challenge for me, I ask myself: What would this look like if it was easy? Or fun?

This is something I’m still contending with, but it does help from time to time.

Conclusion

And this is it for this episode! I hope this encourages / entertains you in some way. I feel like this idea of complete freedom will allow me to reach that crazy level I’m after.

And I’m not afraid of “too much” freedom. As it turns out, I’m pretty good at being disciplined haha. It’s the opposite direction in which I need to balance myself.

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

Artist Corner

Today we talked about Anastasia Kustove, a fantastic watercolor painter I recently discovered on Instagram. You can check out her work @Kustova_Anastasia.

She mostly paints views and people. Her style is fantastic, and I’ve been really enjoying seeing it develop over the last year.

I especially love seeing pictures of her work on-location, such as this one.

And this is it for today!

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

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

How Realistically Should you Draw and Paint? | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 57

Hi there, Liron here, and today I want to address an issue I’ve been asked about a lot lately.

How Realistically Should You Paint or Draw?

I seem to be getting a lot of questions like “How realistically should I paint?” or “Should I change what I see or try to stick to the reference?”.

And all of these questions are a “how” types of questions. In order to answer them, we need to move into a higher plain of thought.

We need to answer the WHAT question (and perhaps also the “why” question).

What do You Want?

The bottom line is this – what kind of art do YOU want  to make? What kind of artwork inspires you and makes you full of joy?

Whatever that is – go do that (:

That’s my simple answer for you. If you understand what you want, and perhaps why you want that – the “how” will take care of itself. It will merely be a manifestation of what you want.

And with that being said… artist corner!

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Amanda Hyatt.

Amanda’s a fantastic impressionist watercolor painter. She cranks up the impressionism, while – from afar – not losing that beautiful realistic feeling I love so much!

Her style actually reminds me of the classic English OIL painters, despite her working in watercolor, which is quite surprising!

I discovered her through a YouTube video, and highly recommend you check it out, as well as the rest of her work.

YouTube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Q9SP99rE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jScO-4vvw

Amanda’s website:
https://amandahyatt.com.au/

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 TV Interview | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 56

Hi there, Liron here! And today I want to talk to you about my recent TV interview! (:

This was a spectacular way for me to close-up 2018 and start 2019.

In this episode I tell you a bit about how I get the interview, how it went down in the day of the interview, and also some of the interesting questions I was asked.

How I Got the Interview

So basically the show’s anchor contacted me via LinkedIn and asked if I would be interested in being interviewed for a show on The Christian Network.

We talked on the phone and set it up.

The funny thing is, she didn’t really reach me thanks to all the tons of content I publish, but rather accidentally found me on LinkedIn (haha!).

But I will say that just the previous month I significantly improved my LinkedIn page, companies listed and so on – so that may have contributed!

The Day of the Interview

I got there early, as asked to. But the schedule was postponed so I only started the interview about 1.5 hours after arriving!

So in the meantime I had enough time to build some nervousness. But there were a bunch of interesting people there and we talked!

Then they did my make up, put on a mic and we got started.

The Interview Itself

I’ll start by saying that Yael, the anchor, was super professional and nice. Was also impressed by the whole crew.

I thought I’d share some notable questions and the answers I gave.

Q: What is the role of artists in society?

A: I basically talked about how we are sensitive to things few people can notice or see. So our job is to remind people of beauty, and how it’s everywhere around us.

I also explained how people always comment that I make “boring” subjects interesting. And that’s part of it!

Q: Does your work comment on current social or political issues?

A: I said that I strive to make evergreen content that will always be able to inspire people to create with courage and passion. So I don’t really comment on current events or anything like that.

Q: Do you let your emotions onto the canvas?

A: Sometimes. I’m very logical in nature. My creative time is bound in a tight time slot, and within that I allow myself complete freedom. So depending on the mood I may just paint, or I may pour my heart and emotions onto the canvas.

 Q: What is your dream project?

A: To which I told her about wanting to collaborate with a musician or rapper, and combine music and art in some way! (:

Conclusion

This was an amazing experience, and I’m so grateful to have had it. It gave me even more confidence in myself and my skills, and showed me I’m prepared for the next level, once it hits.

I will keep striving to become the best of the best! So happy to have you with me on this journey ^_^

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Hercules Brabazon Brabazon, an English watercolor and oil painter.

I absolutely love his works. He was known to be accomplished in the Turner (William Turner) watercolor style and approach.

But as with some other artists – what I really like is his oils.

You can read more about him here: Hercules Brabazon Brabazon on Wikipedia

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