What are the black and white images (with pink shapes) in the videos for?

These images are used to show you the area of the subject Anna is talking about and is (usually) about to paint next.

Anna creates the images shown in her videos by manually selecting the areas and using a colour selection tool in PhotoShop. So you do need to be able to actually identify the different shapes of colour yourself in order to be able to do this.

If you're having issues seeing shapes of colour when you're painting try placing your painting next to the reference photo, or next to your tablet or computer, taking a step back and comparing the two. Also try turning both your painting and the photo upside down. By getting a different perspective on the composition you can often see these shapes much clearer than when you're up close.