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

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

 

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.

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

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.

Don’t Worry About Inconsistent Artistic Results | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 15

Episode Summary

In this episode I want to share with you an epiphany I’ve had following a conversation with a friend of mine.

I bumped into her as I was painting, and we talked for a while. I shared how I recently feel like my results are inconsistent.

Here response really surprised me. She simply said that OF COURSE it’s going to be inconsistent. It’s art!

This really got me thinking.

I finally came to realize after a while – OF COURSE she’s right. Art and creativity are BY DEFINITION inconsistent.

That’s their magic! If they were consistent, they’d also be boring!

Artist Corner

In this episode we talked about the artist Lora Zombie. She’s an extremely talented Russian painter.

She often expresses different ideas and messages through here work. Her style has this unique POP to it (she refers to it as grunge art), and her favorite color seems to be blue.

She does exhibitions and galleries all around the world, and also makes and sells clothing items featuring her art.

Be sure to check out her work on her website (http://lorazombie.com/), or on Instagram HERE, or @LoraZombie.

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.

Creating Art Outdoors VS Indoors | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 13

Episode Summary

In this episode of my podcast I’m talking about creating indoors VS outdoors. I elaborate on how these are different, and what the benefits are of doing both.

I focus mainly on the implications for visual artists – painters, sketchers, sculptors and so on.

Working outdoors is messier, more dynamic, full of changes, distractions and so on. However, it’s much more immersive, and sucks you into the scene.

Working indoors is cleaner, more well-organised. But it does take you out of the environment to some extent, and “weaken” some of your senses and perception.

I believe you can get the most benefit by practicing to alternate between the two. This means working outdoors, and then indoors.

I also aspire to do both. That way my skills in one are will flow to the other.

Artist Corner

In this episode I mention James Gurney. He is an amazing artist and creator, most well know for creating the Dinotopia book series.

But the reason I personally love him is his tutorials on YouTube, where he paints mostly with gouache paint. This actually got me really interested in gouache myself, and I’ll probably give it a try in the future!

Be sure to check out his YouTube channel here: James Gurney

And you can also find me here (:

Support me on Patreon

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Snapchat – @LironYan3