Ellen Hedfield

My watercolor paintings celebrate the beauty and dignity of the ordinary things that have been cast aside – beautiful, weathered, abandoned objects that once had a job to do. I find these treasures when exploring wide-open spaces of the rural West. I stop to examine the things that draw my attention – equipment, signs, vehicles, and structures – and their textures, colors, and shadows.

Working from my own photographs and using a tightly-framed composition, I depict in detail the weathered surfaces and materials – wood and glass, metal and stone – and use bold color to portray textures and decay. I begin by laying down large, pigment-heavy “wet-in-wet” washes, then progressively add layers of detail to create texture. With emphasis on highlights and deep shadows, my subjects – with their peeling paint, rusty metal, and broken glass – come alive in three dimensions. I love to depict subjects that have succumbed to the passage of time, with their beautiful, weathered textures.