A couple of paintings side by side with their reference images! ✨ I like to share these comparisons every once in a while as a gentle reminder that your painting doesn’t need to look exactly like your reference. I know that sounds like an obvious statement - but it’s so easy to get lost in the details and frustrated when you’re first learning to paint. My best advice is to focus on the painting as its own entity, don’t worry about how closely it resembles your reference. The goal should be to make a good painting, or one step closer to a good painting than you made last time (I thought I had made a few more new comparisons to share, but if I did I can’t find them 😂. I hope you don’t mind some repeats!)