how to succeed as an artist Archives

Common Artist Problems – Self-Discipline & Comparing Yourself to Others | Liron’s Podcast Episode 118

In this episode I talk about 2 common artist problems: SELF-DISCIPLINE, and COMPARING yourself to others (and also how to get started in watercolor 😉).

Let’s break it down!

How to Develop Self-Discipline as an Artist

Here’s my take on it:

Understand what your vision / ambition is
Make a connection between the mundane daily tasks – and that larger vision. How does completing this seemingly mundane task (or simply a task that scares you and creates resistance) – helps in making your larger vision come true?
Schedule it! That’s the first step to getting things done
Monitor it – How did you do? What can be improved?
Don’t be too harsh with yourself. Are you consistently moving forward, and getting up after “losses”? You’re golden!

Comparing Yourself to Others

You’re not alone in this – we all do this.
You may not be able to get rid of this habit completely, but you can work towards making it affect you less.
You and every single person in the world are VASTLY different, and so you cannot create exactly like others – and THEY cannot create exactly like you!
Focus on yourself, compete with yourself and strive to improve yourself

How to Get Started in Watercolor

Lastly, I also provided some advice for getting started in watercolor.

This is divided into two main parts:

Learn the medium / techniques
Paint as much as you can – preferably from real life as often as possible

There’s no substitute for practicing (:

I hope you found this episode helpful and encouraging! Be sure to follow me on Instagram for the next live video I do.

Here’s where you can do that, as well as how to find me on other platforms:

Instagram – @LironYanIL

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Twitter – @LironYan

STORY TIME – How I Became an Artist | Liron’s Art & Creativity Show

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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

What I’m Grateful For in 2019 | Liron’s Podcast Episode 100!

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Today I want to share with you the things I’m grateful for in 2019!

I believe gratitude is a very important asset for achieving success. The ability to be grateful for what you have, is what enables you to ultimately have more of it.

A good example is people trying to build their online presence and social media accounts, complaining about having only 400 followers.

A surefire recipe for getting to 4000, is to actually care about your 400.

Here are some of the things I’m grateful for in 2019:

Our crazy New York month-long vacation and meeting some of my followers there, and ESPECIALLY seeing up close the impact my content has on people.
Taking responsibility for my personal finances and being WAY more organized than in the past.
Teaching watercolor private lessons consistently.
Publishing 2 articles in the Leisure Painter magazine, and the really positive experience I had around that.
Getting started with TikTok, and consistent content publishing
My book “How to Sketch” being picked up by a Russian publishing house.
Getting my deviated septum fixed and being able to breath fully!!!
And some more…

I cannot stress enough how key gratitude is. It’s the thing that enables me to follow my vision clearly.

I practice it every single morning. It doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Practice appreciating the small things.

And let me know what you’re grateful for, in one of the following places!

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

ARTISTS – You Are ALLOWED to FAIL | Liron’s Podcast Episode 98

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Are you failing in painting / watercolor / art? In this episode I’m talking about failing and why it’s an inevitable part of success and the artistic journey.

What’s Failing?

My perspective here is that failing is very subjective.

You may not like your painting, while others may LOVE IT. So – did you fail? That will depend on who you ask the questions.

I think another component is whether the end result matches the vision you had in mind for it. And you are the ONLY person who can say the result didn’t match your vision.

So you’re pretty much the only person who can declare a painting as a “failure” (;

Let’s Get to The Point – Failing is Inevitable

If I had to sum up this episode, I’m simply talking about how failing is an inevitable, inseparable part of the artistic journey.

There’s no learning a new skill, growing and improving without it. It’s just not going to happen.

So you better start getting used to the idea of not getting the results you want.

One fascinating thing I came to realize recently is that we fail at ALL levels of skill. In fact – your skill level is irrelevant.

You’ll fail as a beginner, as an intermediate and as an advanced artist. Even with lots of experience and fantastic work to show for. That’s simply the nature of creativity.

To Conclude Failing

The only purpose of this episode, as well as the original YouTube video, is to provide some mental support for you to KEEP GOING and KEEP PRACTICING regardless of the result.

If you love what you do, see potential in it or simply want to do it! – Don’t let the feeling of failure stop you.

I hope you enjoy this one, let me know your thoughts in a comment below, or feel free to reach out through these places…

How to Reach Out / Learn More

TikTok – @Liron.Yan

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan

People Didn’t Want Me to Become an Artist | Liron’s Podcast Episode 97

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Today I’d like to talk to you about the start of my journey of building a business around my art, and some of the resistance and negativity I experienced on the way.

This is a topic very close to heart. Making the right decisions in that context can ENSURE you’ll have the potential to succeed.

Making the wrong decision? You’re done before you even got started.

When I Started My Business…

I started this art thing towards the end of my military service. I actually got started by writing and publishing books independently on Amazon.

That went well and I think it was a combination of skill and LOTS of luck too.

Resistance and Negativity

I encountered A LOT of pushback from family and friends when it came to pursuing a career in art, and building a business around art.

A lot of it was definitely not ill-intended. Many times people have your best interest in mind (or at least that’s what they think).

But you have to understand that they don’t have your vision, wants and needs. They have no idea what makes you happy, or how important something is for you.

People Just Don’t SEE You

A mind-boggling thing I mention in the episode is how – nowhere between 5-17 was I ever “Huh, you’re actually really good at this art thing, maybe you should do something with it!”.

It’s amazing to really think about it this way, as I was doing quit a good job even when I was around 6-7 years old, copying drawings from one of my Dr. Seuss books.

For some reason I was pushed to learn physics and computer engineering. I found those somewhat interesting, but only to a very limited extent.

Again, I can’t really blame anyone for this. Art isn’t the obvious career path, and computers and sciences were and are still on a pedestal.

But I do think the world will be a MUCH better place if people would at least notice others’ gifts and mention something. A simple compliment can go a HUGE way.

The Positive Note & A Word of Warning

Despite the pushback / resistance / negativity / limiting beliefs – my vision was clear enough for me to follow through. These clouds never really blocked it for me.

But I’m afraid SO MANY people don’t have that clarity, or aren’t as positive to see a way. I’m scared people will allow their dreams to slip away due to negative feedback from their environment.

And THAT’S what I want to make sure you avoid.

If you give up – you’re done. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Conclusion

I know I’ve been all over the place with the TEXT version of the episode. But I want to keep it like that, in it’s raw authentic form.

I hope you got something out of this episode.

Please feel free to let me know – in any of the ways below…

Take care and we’ll talk soon!

— Liron

How to Reach Out

YouTube – Liron Yanconsky Art

LinkedIn – Liron Yanconsky

Pinterest – Liron Yanconsky

Instagram – @LironYanIL

Twitter – @LironYan