Study for Blue Ducktrap 1998

Neil Welliver made this square landscape painting, Study for Blue Ducktrap, with oil on canvas. The surface is alive with brushstrokes. It's not about hiding the process, but about reveling in the act of painting itself. The palette is cool and muted, all icy blues and crisp whites with touches of brown, evoking the chill of a winter day by a river. Look closely at the water, those dabs and dashes of color aren't just depicting the flow, they're building a mosaic of light and reflection. The paint is applied in these small, deliberate strokes, it's almost like he's knitting the scene together, one careful stitch at a time. This is where Welliver reminds me of Fairfield Porter, another painter who found endless inspiration in the everyday. Both artists show us that beauty isn't about grand gestures but about seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. And that, to me, is a pretty cool trick.