Food is one of my favorite things to paint. It's colorful, it's forgiving, and there's something satisfying about capturing something that's meant to disappear.

This one is a burger I had in Japan, I had the photo saved and kept coming back to it, so eventually I just painted it.

The painting itself felt different from ones I've done before, and I've been trying to pin down why. I think it comes down to this: I used to paint by studying someone else's painting of a thing. Someone with a polished style would share their food illustration, and I'd essentially try to match it — and then feel bad when mine didn't look the same. Classic perfectionism trap. Their version looked good, so that meant it was the right way to paint it.

This time I just worked from the photo directly. No reference painting to measure myself against. And something loosened up. I wasn't trying to meet a standard I'd seen somewhere else, I was just interpreting what was in front of me. The bun, the lettuce, the way the fries pile up without needing to be rendered one by one.

It's a small shift in approach but it felt big. The art is just... how I see it. That's allowed.

I'm starting to get a feel for what my watercolor style actually is, and I think this is part of it: loose, a little impressionistic, more interested in the feeling of a thing than a perfect record of it.