{"id":12958,"date":"2026-05-21T07:22:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/?p=12958"},"modified":"2026-05-21T07:22:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:22:23","slug":"comfort-through-discomfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/comfort-through-discomfort\/","title":{"rendered":"Comfort Through Discomfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am finding myself in a season of practice. It wasn’t planned, but here I am. And what surprises me most is that it’s not an uneasy place to be…for the most part.<\/p>\n

\"Back

Our early blooming Korean azalea marks the beginning of each growing season in our back garden. Gouache (top) vs watercolor sketches. What I find most interesting in these experiments is that they show possibilities for pushing toward abstraction.<\/p><\/div>\n

All I want to do these days is play with materials and allow myself the space and grace to relax into exploration for its own sake. In part, this may be a response to the past year, one filled with changes and milestones, both personal and professional. I’m more than ready to let the wind blow me around for a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Blue

I always ask our life drawing models if it’s ok to take a photo. In the moment it allows me to see details that aren’t possible unless I’m right up in their faces. Most are happy to oblige. I don’t ever share the photos elsewhere, but I can return to them later for practice. This is done with gouache. It’s all about color here.<\/p><\/div>\n

That said, I realize that in the long run it will serve me to set up a few guardrails in order to find a path and to stay on track. My current task is to try to figure out exactly what those parameters will be.<\/p>\n

\"Chapel

Photos from our travels offer plenty of opportunity for experimenting with different materials. These images of the chapel at Scone Palace in Scotland were made with watercolor, gouache & pencil (top) – I love the way that you can see the strokes of pencil over the paint. The bottom drawing is made with Neocolor IIs and a Koh-i-noor Negro pencil. Due to their waxy nature, not much will make a mark over the Neocolors. It was a huge discovery to find that this pencil will.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s somewhat slow going. Some days don’t feel particularly productive or, probably because of that, comfortable. Yet, playing around with intention can be a lot of fun, and my gut tells me that spending this time now will bear fruit later.<\/p>\n

\"Italy

This experiment was geared more toward the paper than the drawing materials or paint. I don’t want to bother with a bulky sketchbook when we travel, so finding the right paper for making my own is key. So far Fabriano Artistico bright white wins.<\/p><\/div>\n

Overall, I have faith that investigation minus specific goals or time constraints isn’t aimless; it’s the route to eventually cracking open a new realm of possibility. Unearthing unexpected and (hopefully) insightful discoveries between process and materials can only surface by diving down rabbit holes with a mindset of “what if?”.<\/p>\n

\"Figures\"

Drawing the models in the endless catalogs that come in day after day makes for an easily accessible source for figure drawing practice on the fly — not to mention helping me feel like the catalogs weren’t a total waste before throwing them in the recycling bin.<\/p><\/div>\n

So that’s where I’m headed.<\/p>\n

\u2736<\/span><\/h2>\n

Latest inspiring finds:<\/p>\n

Katia Shumkova<\/a> –<\/p>\n

The Bridge<\/a> – a series of letters between artists Stacey McCall<\/a> and Elizabeth Barnett<\/a> , asking questions about art, creative practice and life. The big things and the small.<\/p>\n

And, I can’t wait to visit Paper & Pencil<\/a> the next time we’re in Chicago. Let me know if you get there first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am finding myself in a season of practice. It wasn’t planned, but here I am. And what surprises me most is that it’s not an uneasy place to be…for the most part. All I want to do these days is play with materials and allow myself the space and grace to relax into exploration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,1017,862],"tags":[1722,1718,1719,1723,1721,1720],"class_list":["post-12958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","category-materials","category-textiles-and-drawings","tag-elizabeth-barnett","tag-investigation","tag-katia-shumkova","tag-paper-pencul","tag-stacey-mccall","tag-the-bridge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-3n0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12958"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12974,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958\/revisions\/12974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}