Tag: inspiration

Huge YouTube Research – Growing Channel in 2019 | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 66

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I’m doing a huge YouTube research endeavor to figure out how to create better content that reaches MORE people.

I’ll keep this short, as I want to create a more detailed post on LinkedIn & Medium.com on the topic.

But here are the main things I learned.

Excellent Video by Derral Eves

So I watched this video and gained some valuable insights in regard to my own videos, and in general.

The new Creator Studio Beta – YouTube’s new Creator studio is INSANELY helpful.

They developed some relatively new features that I really like. The way they present the CTR (% of people clicking your thumbnails) is really smart.

I also loved how you can watch the retention graph alongside your video. This means that if you are rambling in the vid, you’ll probably see a drop of viewers on the graph.

The importance of thumbnails and titles – I always knew how important these are. But now I understand that in an even deeper level. As Derral mentions, some of the creators he works with spend hours coming up with their titles and thumbnails.

These provide you the chance of being discovered. And YouTube rewards videos that have a high CTR (and a high retention rate, which brings me to my next point).

AVD (Average View Duration) and watch time are everything – Ultimately YouTube wants to make money. If you can create content that gets a lot of clicks, and gets people to binge watch – that’s the best.

This is why it’s highly recommended to create playlists (like my The Paint Show and Painting masters). These are series that people enjoy consuming one by one.

Huge YouTube Spreadsheet

This is a project I’ve been working on in the last couple of weeks.

I created a huge spreadsheet with 50 or so YouTube channels, and different criteria (like video length, views %, likes to dislikes ration and a bunch of other more unique elements).

I am filling the table up, with hopes of finding different correlations between things.

For example – do channels that have NO INTRO perform better when it comes to views %?

There are a lot of things I want to test out, and hopefully this will be a good tool to do just that.

IGTV VS YouTube

IGTV is Instagram’s platform for video. Unlike YouTube, IGTV is vertical, and everything is based around that.

So far IGTV has been really good to me. I went all in and started posting tons of videos there, and it’s paying off.

Some of my vids reached as many as 600K views, and these accelerated my growth on Instagram as well.

So this is another platform I’m hopeful of. But I’m also aware that YouTube isn’t going anywhere soon. Plus the views there are more high quality, in the sense of more people who want to actually learn how to draw and paint.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Randall Sexton. Randall’s a California-based oil painter. I love is impressionism and style.

His color choices are rather unique, I haven’t seen many artists paint like that. As always, his street scenes are my favorites. He has one I love in particular, of a van / trailer with a smooth reflective texture that he portrayed beautifully.

You can check out his work on his website: https://www.rcsexton.com/

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

Biggest Watercolor Painting Influences – Stan Miller, Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet & Chien Chung Wei | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 58

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Hi there, Liron here! Today I want to share with you my biggest painting influences – Stan Miller, Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet and Chien Chung Wei.

I will talk about what I learned from each one of these artists. Let’s get started!

1. Stan Miller

My biggest insight from Stan was how colors don’t matter, and it’s all about the values.

Stan Miller has so many insanely helpful YouTube tutorials, and in them he always emphasizes – if you get your drawings right and your values right – it will look realistic.

I learned the most from Stan Miller, no doubt about it.

Check out this tutorial to see what I mean: Stan Miller – Portrait Demonstration

2. Joseph Zbukvic

From Joseph I learned a lot about simplifying what I see. I learned I can manipulate things and represent them in a simpler manner that really works for the viewer.

Another thing I learned was the importance of believing in the process and allowing the painting time to come together.

I no don’t give up on ANY painting, until it’s 100% doomed haha.

3. Alvaro Castagnet

Ahhh, Alvaro. Such a unique spirit. From him I learned a few interesting things.

First – the important of contrast, or as he likes to call it – contradiction. This means having hard edges and soft edges, warm color and cool color. Conflicting elements that add interest.

One practical thing I got from him was to place cools and blues in close proximity, inside the shadows, to create interest and richness to the shadows.

Overall, my style is very different from Alvaro’s, but I do get a lot of inspiration from his uniqueness of style.

4. Chien Chung Wei

I started following Chien Chung Wei more recently, and even featured him in my newest episode of Painting Masters.

I learned to much to even explain here, so you’ll have to listen to the episode haha. Mostly I learned real skill is. His work is several folds more impressive than anything else I’ve seen.

And with that being said, let’s move on to the Artist Corner!

Artist Corner

So today I wanted to focus on… Chien Chung Wei!

Instead of writing, though, I urge you to take a look at my most recent episode of painting masters:

This artist is really something special.

And that’s it for today, hope you enjoyed this one!

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

How Realistically Should you Draw and Paint? | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 57

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Hi there, Liron here, and today I want to address an issue I’ve been asked about a lot lately.

How Realistically Should You Paint or Draw?

I seem to be getting a lot of questions like “How realistically should I paint?” or “Should I change what I see or try to stick to the reference?”.

And all of these questions are a “how” types of questions. In order to answer them, we need to move into a higher plain of thought.

We need to answer the WHAT question (and perhaps also the “why” question).

What do You Want?

The bottom line is this – what kind of art do YOU want  to make? What kind of artwork inspires you and makes you full of joy?

Whatever that is – go do that (:

That’s my simple answer for you. If you understand what you want, and perhaps why you want that – the “how” will take care of itself. It will merely be a manifestation of what you want.

And with that being said… artist corner!

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Amanda Hyatt.

Amanda’s a fantastic impressionist watercolor painter. She cranks up the impressionism, while – from afar – not losing that beautiful realistic feeling I love so much!

Her style actually reminds me of the classic English OIL painters, despite her working in watercolor, which is quite surprising!

I discovered her through a YouTube video, and highly recommend you check it out, as well as the rest of her work.

YouTube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Q9SP99rE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jScO-4vvw

Amanda’s website:
https://amandahyatt.com.au/

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

My TV Interview | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 56

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Hi there, Liron here! And today I want to talk to you about my recent TV interview! (:

This was a spectacular way for me to close-up 2018 and start 2019.

In this episode I tell you a bit about how I get the interview, how it went down in the day of the interview, and also some of the interesting questions I was asked.

How I Got the Interview

So basically the show’s anchor contacted me via LinkedIn and asked if I would be interested in being interviewed for a show on The Christian Network.

We talked on the phone and set it up.

The funny thing is, she didn’t really reach me thanks to all the tons of content I publish, but rather accidentally found me on LinkedIn (haha!).

But I will say that just the previous month I significantly improved my LinkedIn page, companies listed and so on – so that may have contributed!

The Day of the Interview

I got there early, as asked to. But the schedule was postponed so I only started the interview about 1.5 hours after arriving!

So in the meantime I had enough time to build some nervousness. But there were a bunch of interesting people there and we talked!

Then they did my make up, put on a mic and we got started.

The Interview Itself

I’ll start by saying that Yael, the anchor, was super professional and nice. Was also impressed by the whole crew.

I thought I’d share some notable questions and the answers I gave.

Q: What is the role of artists in society?

A: I basically talked about how we are sensitive to things few people can notice or see. So our job is to remind people of beauty, and how it’s everywhere around us.

I also explained how people always comment that I make “boring” subjects interesting. And that’s part of it!

Q: Does your work comment on current social or political issues?

A: I said that I strive to make evergreen content that will always be able to inspire people to create with courage and passion. So I don’t really comment on current events or anything like that.

Q: Do you let your emotions onto the canvas?

A: Sometimes. I’m very logical in nature. My creative time is bound in a tight time slot, and within that I allow myself complete freedom. So depending on the mood I may just paint, or I may pour my heart and emotions onto the canvas.

 Q: What is your dream project?

A: To which I told her about wanting to collaborate with a musician or rapper, and combine music and art in some way! (:

Conclusion

This was an amazing experience, and I’m so grateful to have had it. It gave me even more confidence in myself and my skills, and showed me I’m prepared for the next level, once it hits.

I will keep striving to become the best of the best! So happy to have you with me on this journey ^_^

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Hercules Brabazon Brabazon, an English watercolor and oil painter.

I absolutely love his works. He was known to be accomplished in the Turner (William Turner) watercolor style and approach.

But as with some other artists – what I really like is his oils.

You can read more about him here: Hercules Brabazon Brabazon on Wikipedia

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

My 2019 Goals as an Artist | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 55

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Hi there, Liron here! Today I want to talk to you about my 2019 goals as an artist (and perhaps as a person in general!).

First off – I wanted to wish you a fantastic 2019. I hope you achieve anything you set out to. Also wishing you lots of health and happiness.

So now – let’s get started!

My 2019 goals are divided into to groups – big goals and small goals.

Big 2019 Goals

These are main, essential goals that encompass my long term vision.

1. To reach a “Godlike” level of creation.

That was the best way I found to phrase it. I want to create are that contains shards of divinity, perfection and the ideal.

In other words – I realized how important it was for me to improve my creative skills. This poses a challenge – how can I work even harder on my skills, and still be fully productive in all the other areas.

I still cannot answer that question fully. But what I do know is that this one is very important to me.

2. Complete control of my personal and business finances.

I say personal AND business, but I’m aware that the focus really is on the personal. In 2018 I created a lot of order and organization in how I manage my finances, and a part of it is getting a firm to do that for me (;

But now I want to be more in control of how much I’m actually spending, in relations to my expenses.

This is mainly so that I can save and invest for the future.

3. Share my knowledge and create a legacy.

This is a direct continuation of what I’ve been doing in the past 2 years. Only now I know exactly how to phrase it.

This is basically publishing tons of content online.

This year, however, I’ll start being more active on LinkedIn, and also get back to Pinterest, which I completely abandoned for the last two years.

There are also some other platforms I’m planning on putting more emphasis on, and I generally want to DO MORE everywhere.

Small 2019 Goals

These are smaller goals that are still important for me.

1. Become a YouTube master.

This means improving my content significantly, and becoming one of the best channels out there.

2. LinkedIn.

Already mentioned previously. But it was still important for me to write this one separately. LinkedIn has more meaning to me than just another social platform. This is a symbol of me starting to take my personal brand in a more business-related direction, and not just are.

3. Taking the interactions with my audience to a face-to-face level.

This means giving lectures and doing talks and keynotes. This will require some serious work on my part. We’ll see how it goes! (:

4. Nurturing and deepening relationships with my friends and family.

Working so hard for the past several years, I’ve always tried to ensure I balance my work with my personal relationships. This year I want to also make sure I continue developing those.

Better Way to Phrase my Vision

These goals aren’t that different from what I’ve been doing.

But I do thing they are more accurately phrased to match my long term vision. And that’s important.

The more they match it, the easier it will be for me to see the connection, and work towards them with stronger motivation.

And the workload is coming.

I started writing everything down today, and breaking down the goals into tasks. It’s remarkable how much work I’m going to have this year.

But I’m ready for it!

And now we are also ready for the artist corner.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about a Spanish artist named Manel Plana.

Manel is a watercolor painter. I was recommended to check out his work by a follower on YouTube, and boy – is he amazing!

Manel has this very loose, almost abstract impressionistic style. But it’s SO REALISTIC when you take a few steps back!

I highly recommend you check out his work on his website (he has quite an active blog, it seems!): Manel Plana

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