English is not my first language so I apologize in advance.

My girlfriend has always been into drawing and painting, especially ink work and watercolor. She would love to become a professional, full time artist. She is very committed to this but is also very hard on herself in that she often thinks she isn't good enough. This is (I think) sometimes made worse by me being a hobbyist as she tends to compare herself to me and use it to insult herself.

My job is unrelated to the arts but I make cards, drawings, and so on of my favorite actors and for my friends, and of course her. I'm generally a more analytical person and good at finding strengths and weaknesses, and this also applies to my own work. I have a good sense of balance, colors and proportion but I can lack in anatomy and consistency. I am far from the best artist in the world but compared to the average person I do pretty well.

Being more analytical, I can also see the strengths and weaknesses in her work. She does well inking but often struggles with her creativity and coloring. Her ideas tend to be very cliche, for example if she was asked to draw a picture of depression she may draw a girl crying with a broken heart in the background. Part of this is probably just her lack of confidence stopping her from really pushing it. 

But because I am her partner, I am always there to support her in drawing. She is open with me about her insecurities and I always tell her that as long as she believes in herself she can do it. She is also still learning, she is taking art classes so I also tell her as she learns more it'll be way easier because she'll know how to use the materials. 

A more blunt friend pointed this out to me and told me that by encouraging a bad artist I'm just disrespecting my girlfriend since she won't be able to succeed in that field. This is not the only field my girlfriend is considering but I would like to hear some opinions.