I have been taking Victor Wang’s Oil Painting Techniques class this semester. In the class we go through the painting methods of three master painters;  Jan Van Eyck, Titian, and Peter Paul Rubens. These three painters exemplify the three central methods of traditional oil painting.

Since I have been learning about traditional painting methods, I have been wondering what it was like for a painter back then. They painted when an artist couldn’t go to the store and browse through a shelf full of synthetic oil paints, nicely pre-packaged in little tubes for convenience. This led me to the question, “Where DID they get their paints?”

So, I have begun to research how to make paints. I started by purchasing pigments, which are colored powders that are mixed with oil to make paint. Still, this seemed too commercial. I wanted to know what it is really like to make paint from start to finish. I begun with the easiest pigments to make, which are earth tones. I searched out colored earth of different colors, looking for reds and yellows. I found two that I really like in Des Peres. One is yellow rock, and the other is a reddish colored dirt. I brought them back to my studio, and began grinding…and grinding…and grinding. Grinding it down until I had a powder fine enough to go through a metal coffee filter. The next step is to mix the pigment with linseed oil, and then grind it together. This step takes about 3 hours of grinding for a small tube of paint. Then, when the pigment is ground into the oil, I put the paste into tubes, and voila! Oil paint!

I thought that this project would just be about how it felt for the masters to make their own paint from raw materials, but now I’ve started using them and I can really tell the difference! My own paints don’t have fillers or preservatives, they are pure pigment and oil. I’m hooked.

The amount of time and energy that goes into making paint probably makes buying it end up being a little bit cheaper. However, it is not nearly as rewarding. Now I have started working on a bluish-green pigment made by suspending copper over vinegar(the masters used urine instead, but I thought I would spare my classmates from the smell). The result is a teal rust that I can’t wait to make paint out of.

I plan to slowly replace all of the paints on my palette, one color at a time.

Every few months the art department invites a visiting artist to come and do a critique with the graduate students. Most of them are professors from nearby schools, but sometimes they are more prominent painters. For the last two days we have been spending time with Jerome Witkin. He is a phenomenal painter with works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and in the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C.

Getting a fresh perspective on our work is always helpful. It is easy to get stuck in a rut talking to the same teacher about my paintings all the time. Having someone new to discuss my work with gives me a fresh start, even if they say all of the same things that my professors do (which is usually the case).

Now that the two days of critiques are over, it is time to apply what was discussed. The visiting artists always leave me with ideas that I need to get down quickly so they don’t fall to the wayside.

The visit with Mr. Witkin was very educational. It is always an honor and a privilege to meet such a high caliber of artist, and I look forward to whoever they find for our next critique.

My wife and I started running in January. We decided we wanted to run a marathon, so we signed up for a half-marathon in Cincinnati in May, and we signed up for a full marathon in St. Louis in October! The marathon is a rock ‘n’ roll marathon, so it will have live bands playing while we run.

So… in the mean time, we have been running. Always running. We have found a lot of nice places in St. Louis to run. The obvious nice place to run is in Forest Park, especially in the winter since its trails are the best kept in St. Louis. In South St. Louis we sometimes run on the Katy Trail. More recently we have started running on the St. Vincent Greenway Trail and the Ted Jones Trail. These two trails are up in North County by UMSL. There are plans in the future to connect the two trails, and the Greenway trail will eventually run all the way down to Forest Park. Since we live in Normandy, it will be really nice to be able to run or bike all the way down to the park without running on busy roads!

For now, we’ll just keep running everywhere we can.

This has been a great week! The weather is finally starting to look like Spring, so my wife and I started off the week by going to the zoo. We visited all of our favorite animals, like the new baby lion who was chomping on a big bone. Kenzi, the baby elephant was adorable as ever. Bert, the majestic grizzly bear was out. They were throwing rolled up bread balls at Bert, and he would sit up on his hind legs and beg for them… so awesome!

Later, we visited the grave of William Clark in Bellefontaine Cemetery just off of I-70. It is one of the largest cemeteries I have ever been to.

On Friday, we went to two art openings. The Varsity Art show at Art St. Louis was great, with paintings by two Fontbonne students, Albert Kuo and Julie Deken! The other opening was the faculty show at Fontbonne! I really think every Fontbonne student should get over to the gallery and check it out!

Today we went to the Fabulous Fox theater for a taping of America’s Got Talent! We got to be in the audience and cheer for the good acts and boo the bad ones! Best of all, we got to see Howie Mandel, Sharon Osborn, and Howard Stern!

Now my wife is out latin dancing with one of her girlfriends while I am at the graduate art studios for some late night painting. I just started the final painting in a series of 12!

It has been a long, but awesome week!

What I love most about living in a new place is learning fun and strange new history about the city. St. Louis has a lot of very fascinating history.

Many people consider the Wainwright building to be the first skyscraper! The Wainwright building is located in downtown St. Louis, only a few blocks from the arch. It is a beautiful, brick building designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan in 1890. It was built to resemble a classical column to emphasize its height. When it was built it was the tallest building in St. Louis at a whopping 10 stories!

Another very interesting aspect of St. Louis history is the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. The fair was located at Forest Park. Many buildings were built for the fair, and a few of them still stand; the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and a large aviary in the St. Louis Zoo. Also, several foods were popularized at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Among them are hamburgers, hot dogs, waffle-cones, and cotton candy!

One interesting bit of St. Louis history surrounds what is known as Bloody Island. It is a sandbar in the Mississippi that is now attached to the Illinois shore. At one time it was a small island that belonged neither to Missouri, nor Illinois. For this reason it was a popular place for dueling! Two of these duels were between Thomas Hart Benton and Charles Lucas (who owned a large amount of land in North County). They were both lawyers, and they had a dispute in a trial. At a voting poll, Lucas accused Benton of not paying his property tax, and Benton responded, calling him a “little puppy.” Lucas challenged him to a duel on Bloody Island! They were both injured in their first duel, and in their second duel, Benton shot Lucas and he died in 1817. Most of Lucas’ land ended up in the hands of Wilson Price Hunt. This land is now Normandy and the surrounding areas, by Lucas and Hunt Road. Benton went on to be one of the first Missouri Senators, a driving force behind Manifest Destiny, and the great uncle of the famous Missouri painter, also named Thomas Hart Benton!

One of the greatest things about St. Louis, in my opinion, is the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM). The museum is free to the public and hosts a great collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptures. I go there quite a bit since it is located in Forest Park which is right by Fontbonne!

Earlier this week, my Oil Painting Techniques class went to the museum and met an art conservationist. He took our class into an underground secure area where artwork restorations are done. It was so fascinating! We learned about how he strips the varnish off of old paintings, repairs them, cleans them, re-varnishes them, and then paints in the missing portions of paint over the varnish. It was really interesting to go into the off-limits area of the museum. It always amazes me how much artwork sits locked up underground waiting to be restored, never getting the chance to be seen by the general public.

Today my wife and I went to the SLAM, because today is Friday and Friday is free day for special exhibits at the museum. The show that is there right now is An Orchestrated Vision: The Theater of Contemporary Photography. It is a lovely collection of staged photographs. I encourage everyone to go and see the show, but I suggest waiting until next Friday when it will be free again!

For more information on the St. Louis Art Museum, or to check out the collections, you can visit their website:

http://www.slam.org/

There are a lot of mixed emotions about Valentine’s Day. I, personally, think Valentine’s Day is wonderful! My wife and I have been married for 3 and a half years. Even though we love each other every other day, it is always fun to celebrate our love for each other. This year we made a rule that we could only spend $5 on our presents. For my wife’s gift, I utilized the metalsmithing studio at Fontbonne and made her earrings! They are pink topaz, sterling silver and pearls. I used a gift card I had for the topaz, and the pearls only cost $8 (so I ended up going $3 over the limit). She still hasn’t given me my Valentine’s Day gift because she hasn’t quite finished it yet, but that’s great because it means we get to have another Valentine’s Day!

I guess I don’t see Valentine’s Day as a reminder to do nice things for my wife, but more as an excuse to do something extra special! Even though I want to make earrings for her all the time, it is difficult to justify taking 9 hours out of my schedule to make them. Valentine’s Day gives me the perfect excuse!

One thing I’ve noticed since moving to St. Louis is that there is a large homeless population here. In the January 2010 census, there were 1,305 counted homeless persons in the St. Louis area. Almost every day on my way to school I pass at least one homeless man holding a cardboard sign. My heart goes out to them, especially right now during the cold winter months. I’ve always been told, as I’m sure many of you have, not to give money to homeless people. The question is, what can we do to help them? Well, a quick Google search will lead you to a number of organizations in St. Louis such as the St. Patrick Center, St. Vincent de Paul, or the Bridge, as well as countless other places that provide services to the homeless population. These are great places to donate money, clothing, and food, or to volunteer.

However, it is still difficult when we pass homeless people on the street. If you don’t feel comfortable giving them cash, or if you just don’t carry cash, then you might find yourself awkwardly avoiding eye contact as they walk by your window. Otherwise, you may give them a friendly smile as if to say, “I would help you if only I knew how.” I decided last year to do something more about it.

I was reading through the Bible in a year, and verses kept jumping out at me: Isaiah 58:7– “Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them…” Proverbs 21:13– “Those who shut their ears to the poor will be ignored in their own time of need.” These are only two of many similar verses. I made a resolution that I would not pass by a homeless person without giving them something.

On a regular basis, I set aside cash that I carry in my pocket solely for the purpose of giving to homeless people. I’ve found that it is much easier to be generous when I keep it separated from my own money. Like tithe, I never consider it mine to begin with. When it got cold, I started keeping a bag of wool socks in my car. You could also keep peanut butter crackers, snack packs, or other small non-perishable items in your glove box for these occasions.

This winter I made care packages that contained a pair of wool socks (Cabela’s: $3.33), a pair of gloves (Home Depot: $1.00), hand warmers (Home Depot: $0.80), and a Bible (Lifeway Christian Store: $1.99). I took them downtown and gave them out on Christmas Eve. It really surprised me how excited someone in need can get over a warm pair of socks and a Bible. One older gentleman started to cry and hugged me. To us, it’s just a few dollars, but to them it means everything.

Since I started doing this, I have found that when I see a homeless person, they are now an opportunity to be a blessing to someone in need.

Hello everyone!

My name is Doug Weaver and this is my first blog post at Fontbonne.

This is my second semester at Fontbonne as a graduate student in painting and drawing. I live in an apartment in North County with my beautiful wife.

As I write this, I am sitting in my new studio space at the Options building in Brentwood. The graduate studios are one of the things that attracted me to Fontbonne. As an artist, it is important to me that I have my own space that I feel comfortable working in. I spend a lot of time in this room, in fact I spend more time in my studio than I do in class. It is the third week of the semester, and I am already working on 3 paintings (not for class). For an art student classes are where you learn valuable tools, the studio is where you really use them.

In addition to being a personal space to work in, the Fontbonne studios are extremely active. Very rarely do I come to the studios and find that I am the only one here. There is a sense of camaraderie among the artists that is difficult to find elsewhere. It comes from the fact that we all come here for the same purpose; art.  I can almost feel the creativity floating around in the space when I walk in the door. It is the sound of the saw when someone is cutting wood for a stretcher, or the scent of melted beeswax in a crock pot. It is seeing paintings in various stages of completion and watching them develop over time, or the random assortment of things that artists accumulate over time; glass bottles, old accordion doors, anything that has potential to be used for inspiration or in a piece itself. I really never know what I’m going to walk in and see.

Another reason having my own space here is important to me is because I need somewhere that I can come to think. This is the step of the art-making process that is often overlooked. Artists spend at least as much time thinking about what to paint than we do actually painting. So I need a place where I can think of ideas, read about various subjects and spending time developing those ideas into a work of art. This place is, for me, my studio space in Brentwood. It is a magical place where fleeting thoughts give way to concrete ideas, and those ideas become finished works of art!