Tag: focus

Importance of PATIENCE & FOCUS for Painting | Liron’s Podcast Episode 113

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In this episode I want to talk about the importance of PATIENCE and FOCUS in painting, and how they helped me with my most recent painting!

Here’s the painting I refer to:

Patience in Painting

I think patience is an IMPORTANT quality to develop when it comes to painting, and watercolor in particular.

That may seem funny, as watercolor sometimes requires speed. But this is ignoring the full picture.

Watercolor requires above all SENSITIVITY to what happens on paper. You have to be very aware of the different levels of wetness, the edges, and many more factors.

You can’t really go back or “go over” mistakes in watercolor, which makes this so important.

Sensitivity for the subject is another requirement. Simply observing it and thinking – how can I convey the message and essence of the subject in the BEST way possible?

What allows this sensitivity is patience.

Focus in Painting

I think an additional by-product of said patience was FOCUS.

I was able to stay focused for long period of time, and slowly let the painting TELL ME what it needs. It’s almost as if I didn’t ASSUME, but rather reacted.

I hope this makes sense!

This process feels very meaningful to me, and the lessons I learned will accompany me in the future.

Let me know your thoughts in a comment below, or contact me in any of the following ways! ^_^

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

How to Improve FASTER in Your Art | Conscious Effort & Focus | Liron’s Podcast Episode 108

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In this episode I wanted to share with you a way, an approach, for improving MUCH FASTER in your art.

Conscious Effort & Focus

The idea here is to go BEYOND the norm, when it comes to practicing your art and craft.

Some examples I provide:

  • Instead of directly drawing figures from reference – try reconstructing them from simple 3d shapes.
  • Try drawing the head from multiple angles using reference, and then drop the reference and try to rotate and draw the head from your imagination.
  • Rather than paint a scene once, how about painting it multiple times, with a different goal in mind each time? Once – focus on values, then – temperature. The try to add or remove elements from it, make stuff up.

The idea here is to take our practice sessions to the border of our comfort zone. Not too hard that you get frustrated fast. Not too easy.

Right on the border.

These ways of practicing really require CONSCIOUS EFFORT, and you will feel tired afterwards (that’s how you know you do it right!).

Repetition

I want to give you another good example for conscious effort and pushing through the comfort zone.

I recently sketched the exact same figure 4-5 times until I got it right.

In the past, I would have moved on to a different one after the first attempt. This is better than giving up completely. But how about trying again and again until you get it right? This will REALLY help you push through and learn something important, I find.

Time is Limited

Many people don’t have a lot of time to practice. You may have a day job, a family, responsibilities.

This way of practicing will make you far more effective.

So if you only have 15 minutes a day – why not make them work like 30 minutes?

I hope this makes sense, and I hope you’ll give it a try.

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out exactly what to do to practice this way. If you’re drawing and painting, I gave you some solid examples. But if not – do your proper research and figure it out.

You will not regret it.

Good luck!

— Liron

Here’s where to find me online

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

— Liron

Improve Your Art INSTANTLY With FOCUS | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 64

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Today I’m going to show how to IMMEDIATELY improve your artistic results, without improving your actual skills.

This is aimed at visual artists mainly, and is probably relevant to any type of medium (watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels, pen and ink – you name it!)

Spontaneity VS Planning

In the past I talked a lot about spontaneity, fun, looseness and allowing your instincts guide you.

To balance this out, today we’ll consider a more deliberate, planned approach.

No one method is the holy grail of anything. Doing BOTH is where the magic happens.

Highly-Detailed Painting

The thing that made me think more about this process, is this painting…

This painting “forced” me to slow down, consider my steps and become more patient.

And it taught me a lot.

I completely outdid myself, and it’s not necessarily thanks to an improvement in my skills, but rather thanks to the process I went through.

So let’s talk about some of the things that will help you improve your results immediately.

Improve Your Art With PLANNING

The first thing I would say is responsible to the improved result is me properly planning the painting.

I did several preparatory sketches in pencil. Some of the entire scene and composition, and others focusing on specific areas and details.

Here are some of those…

The main goal with these sketches is to familiarize myself with the scene, both on a macro level (overall composition), and on a micro level (details).

Focus & Slowing Down

That’s another thing I learned.

You want to deliberately slow down and work patiently. This also involved taking breaks whenever I feel like I’m getting impatient.

As soon as I felt like I was “trying to get to the end result”, rather than enjoy the process and be fully immersed in it – I took a break.

This proved to be very useful, and I kept my energy, motivation and creativity levels high throughout the whole thing.

And by the way, here are some stages from the start of the process until the end of it.

Deliberate Decisions

When painting it’s easy to get into auto-pilot mode.

Doing things on auto-pilot is useful. It’s essentially delegation of some actions to a lower-level element, to save resources.

Muscle memory can play a part in that.

But for some parts of the painting process, you want to be more present and deliberate.

So ask yourself – did I do this brush stroke out of habit and without thought, hoping for the best?

Or am I present to the moment, and doing things in a calculated manner?

If you are always hoping for the best, you may not achieve the result you want.

Last Tip – Scaling

When attempting to create an artwork that’s much LARGER than you are used to, I recommend scaling slowly and gradually.

Larger artworks, especially representational / realistic ones, will require more details as they scale up.

Sometimes it’s hard making the jump from a tiny thumbnail painting to a full sized one (the other way around is also true!).

So do it gradually.

Create a small thumbnail. Then double the size and make a slightly larger painting. Then double it again and do an A4 size. The again, until you are at the scale you are interested in.

This may seem a little redundant, but if you are planning a piece that will take a long time to finish, and you have that time, and you want it to be perfect (let’s say it’s a complex commission work) – this is a very useful process to follow.

And with that – we are ready to look at today’s artist!

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Yuko Nagayama, a Japanese artist.

Here work is so visually pleasing. She uses different subjects to symbolize different ideas and concepts.

She has a lot of florals, and what I especially love about them is that she is using so many colors as well, which reminds me of the way I tend to do portraits.

You can check out a lot of here work here, or by searching google images (;

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

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.