Tag: art

Challenge Your Artistic Beliefs | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 21

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In today’s episode I want us to talk about how to constantly improve your art skills by challenging your artistic beliefs.

Inspiration VS Isolation

In my artistic journey, I deliberately put myself through 2 different time periods: inspiration and isolation. I alternate between these two on a regular basis.

Inspiration is the time to soak up new knowledge, and find a specific artist (or artists) to learn from.

Isolation is a consolidation period when I only focus on making art, and eliminate any external influences. I don’t look at other peoples’ works, and I try to deliberately disconnect from outside inspiration.

Challenging Your Artistic Beliefs

By revisiting the inspiration stage, you introduce “shock” to your system.

You find new things that “work” for you and your style. You learn of new ways to create the impression you want. New painting techniques and approaches.

This is the heart of this episode. I use this to challenge my own beliefs about the “right way” of creating art / painting / sketching.

This can relate to macro ideas like the entire painting process, or the preparation. It can also relate to micro ideas – such as specific techniques.

Going through the cycles

I find this cycle to be very rewarding. The Isolation period allows me to internalize all the new things I learned.

It’s precisely thanks to these two extremes that I was able to improve (as I believe) this quickly.

And this is what I wanted to share with you today (:

Artist Corner

In this episode I talk about David Howell.

David is a watercolor  and oil painter. What fascinates me about his work is that he uses NO PENCIL.

He doesn’t draw before he paints. To be more accurate – he draws several preparatory sketches. But he doesn’t draw on the watercolor paper intended for the painting.

I find this amazing and refreshing. His work also has a very gentle feel to it, and a great sense of light.

He does a lot of seascapes and dock scenes. You can read more about him HERE.

Also check out this interesting video on YouTube.

And here’s where you can find me (:

You can support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

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

How to Become Super-Creative Using Frequency | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 19

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Hi there! Liron here. In this episode I want to talk to you about how to become much MUCH more creative using frequency.

Creativity and Frequency

I slowly learn more and more how creativity and frequency of creation are intertwined.

And I’m not talking about the obvious “more frequent practice = getting better faster”. I’m talking about how practicing more frequently improves you in the SHORT TERM as well.

I noticed my brain is a magician. The more ideas I ask of it, the more ideas I get. The more frequently I publish videos, the more ideas my brain produces.

This is quite different from the mindset I had in the past. I was afraid to post things too frequently, so that I don’t “run out of ideas”.

That’s just the opposite of what really works!

How this can help you

Whatever you are doing on a regular basis – I would suggest playing around with its frequency.

Do you sketch once every few days? Try sketching EVERY day. See where it takes you.

This really is all about experimentation.

I find this to be true about ideas as well. The more I sit down to think about video, podcast or painting ideas – the more new ideas I get.

Exponentially!

The more you give – the more you receive

I really think of this as a law of nature.

The more courage you have to share more and more, and work on your skills more and more – the more you are rewarded.

The more you give courageously, the more the world gives back to you (:

Artist Corner

In this episode we talked about Gregory Packard.

He is an amazing American impressionist artist. What immediately caught my attention with his works is how COLORFUL they are!

If you’ve been following me for a while you know how I’m attracted to colorful and realistic artworks.

You can see more of his work in his website.

 

Conclusion

And this is it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Here’s where to find me:

Here you can support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

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

The Products I’m Working On | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 18

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Hi there! Liron here. In this episode I want to talk to you about the products I’ve been working on during the month of February 2018.

Courses

I’m working on 3 new course I intend on publishing on the Udemy platform. This is where I currently make my courses available (together with my website).

I’m close to finishing 2 out of the three:

  • Portrait painting in watercolor
  • Landscapes in watercolor

Because I’m working on so many things simultaneously, this has been quite the challenge. I really have to work hard to be able to devote large chuncks of works to these products.

They involve recording, and then A LOT of editing work.

Book – How to Sketch People

I’m working on a book on how to sketch people in pen and pencil. This book is meant to be a “twin” product to my video course on sketching people.

This is a topic I’m trying to tackle from a rather unique angle, in my opinion. I try to provide students with a loose and fun method, that still preserves the accuracy and realism of the sketch.

I think this is an incredibly challenging topic that deters many from tackling. With this book, just like with the course, I wanted to turn it into a fun, light-hearted experience.

Increasing My Income

As an artist that is trying to build a business around their art, I have to be proactive. I always have to take care of my own income and earnings.

I have no boss, or salary. This is a huge challenge, but also a great freedom.

My goal with producing so many products is mainly helping as many people as possible, as well as MAKING MORE MONEY (:

I think this is also a uniqe value I bring to the table when it comes to helping other artists. I’m very business-oriented, and hope to inspire other artists to proudly create and charge money for their creation.

I want to use this opportunity to thank you. Yes – you! My listener, viewer, reader and follower.

Without you, all of this would have been impossible.

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about no other than Paul Cézanne.

He doesn’t require too much introduction (;

Cezanne was a French post-impressionist painter, who is widely-known and highly-regarded.

Both Henry Matisse and Pablo Picasso have remarked that Paul Cezanne “is the father of us all”.

You can read more about him in his Wikipedia page.

Conclusion

And this is it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Here’s where to find me:

Here you can support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

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

 

Creating With Complete Immersion | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 17

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In this episode we’ll talk about immersion, and being immersed while you are creating. We will see how this can actually help you make better art!

I got this idea while working out…

So a few weeks ago I was working out, and I noticed I wasn’t really into it.

I noticed my thoughts go somewhere else, and I’m not really focused on the exercise I was doing.

And then I suddenly though – why?

I mean, this is so stupid! I already scheduled the workout session, and I’m already working out.

So why am I so unfocused?

Painting and art making is the same

From there, it was an inevitable connection.

I immediately realized this was also (occasionally) happening to me with painting.

I would sometimes feel unfocused. Like i just want to get it done. Kind of like washing the dishes or brushing your teeth.

And the difference in results shows.

Working while in that headspace leads (at least for me) to mediocre art.

Why do we loose immersion?

I think this can happen for multiple reasons.

For me, this mainly happened as I was detached from the overarching goal. I wasn’t seeing how what I’m doing RIGHT NOW, helps me attain my goals.

This is lack of clarity, and from my experience it isn’t ideal.

So I worked on building up my clarity, writing and figuring out the exact connection between what I’m doing and the end result.

And lo and behold, it worked!

(how I built my clarity is a topic for a future podcast, but brainstorming, writing, asking the right questions and visualizing were a major part of it)

As soon as my clarity increased, I was able to understand why a single rep of a single set of a weight lifting exercise – produces strong ripples into my future.

I was also able to understand how with every brush stroke I improve a certain technique.

Artist Corner

In this episode we talked about Eudes Correia, a Portuguese watercolor artist and instructor.

His work consists of people and figures for the most part. He has an incredible sense of light, shadow and movement.

You can check out his website here: Eudes Correia

And his Instagram account @Eudes_Watercolor

Conclusion

And this is it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Here’s where to find me:

Support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

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

Artistic Project Management | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 16

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In this episode we’ll talk about artistic project management, and how to efficiently manage your time as an artist!

My “History” of Productivity

In this episode I explain how I got started with my art business.

In the beginning I didn’t have a clear vision of what I want to do and achieve. Ands so, I was working on specific projects.

The first projects I worked on were my early books. I had a one track mind back then, and would often work on that project for 12+ hours a day.

Later on I started developing a clearer vision of my mission, and the type of work I want to do in this world. This inevitably created a multitude of tasks, goals, projects and products I had to tackle.

Merging Similar Tasks

One of the most efficient “tricks” I found was to merge similar tasks together.

I discovered this by accident. While I was working on writing and illustrating one of my books, I realized it takes some time to “warm-up” to the task at hand.

So I discovered it would take me around 15 minutes to really get in the groove of writing. I also found out that the more I stick with it, the faster I become and the more coherent my ideas become as well.

This led to an important understanding. When you are already immersed in a task – BETTER KEEP AT IT for as long as possible.

This also needs to be put in the context of your entire work day as well. How much time CAN YOU afford to spend on this particular task? How important is it? How urgent?

My Productivity So Far in 2018

I also briefly discuss wrapping-up 2017 and my productivity up to the point of recording the episode – for 2018.

2017 was great for me. It was a year of clarity. A year of defining my mission and sticking to it.

I can honestly say I have no regrets for 2017. This is a huge source of motivation for me in general – having no regrets.

Artist Corner

In this episode we talked about Piet Mondrian. He was a very well known Dutch painter and theoretician.

He is most famous for his works revolving squares in different colors and compositions.

He is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

What I love about artists like him is that they HAVE THE ABILITY to paint realistically, if they choose to. But they deliberately choose their impressionistic, figurative or abstract style.

They don’t go for abstract due to lack of ability (not to say artist who do abstract have no abilities, but it seems like the skill set of painting realistically requires SO MANY additional skills).

They go for abstract because they are genuinely exploring different territories, and expressing complex ideas and thoughts using their art.

Here’s a great place to start reading more about Piet Mondrian.

Conclusion

And this is it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Here’s where to find me:

Support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

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