Tag: Watercolour painting

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

Impressionism Painting | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 20

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In the picture above is an Edward Seago study I did a while ago

Impressionism Painting

Impressionistic paintings have always attracted me, from the moment I discovered the genre.

I always loved the ability to represent what you see on paper, with the added value of your own interpretive skills, and your special flare.

The Zbukvices and the Castagnets

Immediately after discovering Joseph Zbukvic and Alvaro castagnet I was HOOKED.

I started seeking out similar artists, and paintings in that loose impressionistic style.

I also attempted painting in this style, which was a huge challenge (and still is!).

Edward Seago

Another artist I recently discovered that does impressionism in both OILS and watercolor, is Edward Seago.

He will probably be responsible for me getting into oils in some point in the not-so-far future (;

What Makes Good Impressionistic Art

I have my own opinion about what makes a good impressionistic painting.

This is my opinion, and I could be wrong about some things, or missing others. This is by no means a conclusive list.

Here are some things I noticed so far:

Accurate drawing – This is a must. This is the basis for creating a realistic impression of what you see.

Good sense of light and shadow – This is the second most-important item on my list. I believe this is as important as an accurate drawing.

We see the world in the form of light and shadow, and portraying accurate values is the key for creating realism.

Simplification and abstraction – Here shines the true spirit of impressionism. We are not trying to include every single detail we see.

We simplify things for the viewer, including only what’s ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. And the levels to which we simplify is a personal / style-related choice, but the impression we create still resembles the subject to a high degree.

Colorful / harmonious palette – To me color is secondary, but in some ways it can significantly enhance a painting.

When the colors work well together the good painting turns into a fantastic celebration of mood, atmosphere and temperature.

How to learn impressionism painting & how to improve

This is a question I don’t really have an answer for. I’m still learning this myself. However – there are some habits I noticed have been helping me with this.

Painting from live reference – This means either painting real objects inside, or real scenery outside. It means NOT working from photos.

I cannot stress enough how important field work is. It is an integral part of improving your visual language, which is what we are doing here, after all.

I also think it’s important, from time to time, to work from photos. The reason is that you can be more relaxed, well-organized, and practice the techniques.

Outside you have to hurry, the light is constantly moving and changing, and things are dynamic. Inside you don’t have that issue.

Learning from others – The way I approached learning this is by constantly alternating between two mindsets – inspiration and isolation.

What I practically do is focus for a while on learning from one specific artist who’s work I enjoy. The time-frame for this can range from two weeks to two months. I call this the inspiration period.

Then, I shift into isolation. I ONLY focus on painting what I see, as I see it. I don’t watch YouTube videos. I don’t look at other peoples’ art. I only focus on MY OWN WORK.

And then I go back to inspiration for a while, and the cycle begins again.

I find this REALLY helps me to soak up inspiration and knowledge, and then internalize everything and combine it with MY OWN style.

Conclusion

And this is everything I wanted to share!

Like every new skill, it can be a bit of a challenge. But with enough consistency you get the ball rolling and before you know it – you are an expert!

I hope you enjoyed this one (:

Artist Corner

Today we talked about Edward Seago. He was an amazing English painter who worked in both oils and watercolor.

He lived from 1910 to 1974, and led an interesting life. He was quite close to the royal family, and was even invited on a tour to the Antarctic with prince Phillip.

He produced there what is considered his best work. I personally love both his oil paintings and his watercolors. He had an amazing way of simplifying what he sees.

You can read more about him on Wikipedia – Edward Seago

And here is a Google Images search for you to browse and enjoy

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