becoming more productive artist Archives

Today I want to share with you how I became an artist, as well as my history in the art world from childhood, and finally – what works financially for my art business.

Let’s get to it!

My Childhood & Art

I’ve been drawing and sketching ever since I can remember myself. My very first memory is of sitting at my grandparents’ porch and copying an illustration from a Dr. Seuss book.

I’ve been doodling on the side all through elementary, middle and high-school, and have once sold a sketch of a pokemon 😂 (for 5 shekels, the equivalent of about 1.2 USD back then.

I do want to mention that painting and working in color is something I got to much later in life.

Young Adulthood & Art

During my military service I quit art almost completely. I spent so much time working and barely had any life.

However, in my 6 months of service I started figuring out what I want to try to do in life. And that’s when I got back to art.

I started a blog with drawing lessons, and later published my books, started my YouTube channel, Instagram, courses and so on.

From Existing Platforms to MY OWN Platforms

I got started selling stuff mostly on Amazon and Udemy.

Amazon is where I independently published and sold my books, and Udemy was where I created my courses.

But where I really started seeing some success was when building my own platform.

This is when I started to build my own website, marketing and sales funnel and courses.

This meant no one was taking a serious cut from my earnings, and I have to do the marketing.

Art Business Revenue Streams & What Works Today

With time, additional avenues started popping up.

Among them is selling my paintings (through the local art fair, galleries and directly). Another one is selling the foreign language rights of my books to various publishing houses. And others are Patreon / donations, YouTube ads revenue and more.

Here’s what works for me today…

The numbers are fairly inaccurate, but do give some kind of a picture as to what the main income sources of my art business are.

About a third-half of my income comes from my various how-to-draw books.
Another third comes from the courses
The rest is divides fairly equally between the other sources I described.

Conclusion

So this is where I’m at right now.

I have a long way to go still, when it comes to pretty much everything – Improving my artistic skills, business development, personal growth.

Perhaps in another decade I’ll create a similar post and we’ll see where I’m at 😉

And if you want to reach out, you know where to find me…!

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

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In this episode we’re talking about fears that stop people from creating, and how to overcome them. I don’t have all the answers, but I wish to open this up for discussion and perhaps provide some of my own experience.

I found that one of the main fears are not necessarily external, but rather internal.

For example – the fear of “disappointing” yourself with “another failure”. When you have a bad streak of paintings, and you prefer inaction and avoiding the disappointment.

In my experience, the solution – ironically enough – is to go the complete opposite. To create as much as you can. And to some extent – to disregard quality completely and work on quantity.

That’s something I’d like to encourage more people to try.

I hope you find this episode encouraging in some way. Let me know your thoughts in a comment below.

Here’s the original YouTube video, by the way:

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 (: