Sewickley Township artist breathes life into drawings

Looking at Bob Weaver's black-and-white line drawings of wide-ranging subjects — Pittsburgh football, baseball and hockey stars; coal miners and comic book characters; rock stars and animals — his attention to detail is most striking.

A freehand artist, Weaver draws primarily with a Sharpie pen, using a line-and-dot technique to form a three-dimensional image.

“I like doing faces the most, whether it is animal or people. You can get a lot of emotion out of it ... capturing the spirit of the person,” said Weaver, 61, of Sewickley Township, a successful artist who has been selling his drawings and paintings for about 30 years.

He prefers drawing in black and white.

“People seem to like the black and white the most. It's driven me to keep doing that,” said Weaver, who taught art at Yough High School for 37 years before retiring in 2013.

He estimates he has made 250 pieces of artwork and 50 paintings of a wide range of subjects.

He sells copies of his work at art shows and exhibits, including the Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival at Twin Lakes Park and Fort Ligonier Days. This year, he plans to sell his works in five Mid-Atlantic states.

Weaver's remote home off a back road between the villages of Herminie and Hutchinson allows him to draw in solitude while his wife, Colleen, works as a speech therapist in the Norwin School District. He is disciplined enough to work on his art for about 40 hours a week.

Patricia Vaughn, president of the Norwin Art League, calls Weaver's artistic skills “tremendous.”

“He's a really good portrait artist” who still draws freehand rather than using a computer, Vaughn said.

Teaching art

Weaver grew up in Irwin and has been drawing since he was a young student in the Norwin district.

He credited his high school art teacher, Alex Frendy, for inspiring him to pursue a teaching career. Frendy taught Weaver “cross-hatching” — a technique of drawing lines and dots to create tone and shading.

At Edinboro University, he learned the art media he would teach in the classroom — painting, drawing, sculpture and ceramics.

“Teaching at Yough was very meaningful to me. The kids were so great. There was a lot of talent there,” he said.

In turn, Weaver was an inspiration to his students, Vaughn said.

You could hook a kid on art and help turn him around as a student if he succeeded and got praise for his work, Weaver said. It made the students feel, “I'm kind of good at something,” he said. “A lot of students told me they came to school for art.”

Teaching helped him to hone his own skills.

“All day long, I was thinking creatively. It was like I was still in art school. I appreciate how the kids helped me. They kind of helped me expand my creative thinking,” Weaver said.

He came to focus on pen and ink in the classroom because he could draw while students did their artwork. He couldn't stop in the middle of painting, but he could put down the pen when a student asked for help.

“It was important for them to see me work. That kind of drew me into this — pen work,” Weaver said.

His experience at Yough inspired the name for his website: “Bob Weaver Art Attack.”

Weaver said he used the phrase in the classroom because some students initially were timid. He would tell them they had a good idea, so do it — in essence, launch an “attack.”

Weaver was a “department of one,” quipped Earl Thompson, the high school principal. “He handled it all, and he was outstanding with the kids. He got the most out of the kids, and he was excellent at developing talent.”

Teaching could be considered the Weaver family profession. His father, George, taught music at Norwin, and his mother, Mildred, was an English teacher at Penn-Trafford. Two older brothers, George Jr. and John, were teachers.

A third generation of Weavers is in the classroom. The Weavers' daughter, Amy Weaver Fisher, is an elementary music teacher in Lancaster. Their son, Brian, gives private music lessons at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, and son, Jason, leads music worship at Calvary Assembly of God Church in North Huntingdon.

Art business

Weaver's art business grew as people asked him to do portraits. He was a caricature artist for about 10 years and drew portraits to earn extra money.

His penchant for pen and pencil was refined when he started drawing holiday cards for the Irwin Business and Professional Association 25 years ago, Weaver said. The organization wanted the cards in pen and ink, and he delivered.

His talent caught the attention of Upper St. Clair sports author Jim O'Brien, who used Weaver's illustration of the region's greatest quarterbacks on the cover his book, “Golden Arms — Six Hall of Fame Quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania.”

“I was really overwhelmed by his work. He's so detailed,” said O'Brien, who spotted Weaver's art at a sports card show.

Weaver sketched George Blanda, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas in their uniforms for the book cover. In the background are enduring images of the region's industrial heritage — a towboat pushing coal-laden barges up a river, and a steel mill.

When he saw the portraits, “there's no doubt as to who they are,” said O'Brien, author of 24 books on Western Pennsylvania's rich sports heritage.

He said he appreciates that Weaver aims for reality in his portraits.

“Weaver's artwork appears inside O'Brien's book, “Chuck Noll — A Winning Way,” about the Pittsburgh Steelers' legendary coach. O'Brien said he plans to use more of Weaver's artwork in future books.

Noll was given one of Weaver's portraits of him when St. Vincent College named its football field in his honor.

O'Brien said Weaver is humble about his talents, almost to a fault.

“He doesn't realize how good he is,” O'Brien said.

Weaver has no plans to retire from his artwork.

“It's kind of a passion. It's not work for me,” he said. “I have more ideas in my head than I can do in 10 lifetimes. It'll probably keep me alive longer.”

Joe Napsha is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-5252 or jnapsha@tribweb.com.