By FRED KRONER
Seymour native Bob Scott is a former football player and coach whose interests extend beyond drawing up plays.
He simply likes to draw. And paint.
The 1974 Mahomet-Seymour graduate was putting images on paper long before he had high school art classes taught by Charlotte Williamson (Brady).
“My grandfather and dad encouraged it,” Scott said. “I got more interested in high school. I had some success, so I kept it up.”
As a teen-ager, however, pursuing a career in art wasn’t on Scott’s list of priorities.
“It wasn’t a passion,” he said. “All my time was spent on sports.”
And with good reason. A three-sport athlete for the Bulldogs, Scott had an assortment of colleges interested in having him attend their school to play football.
Air Force, Dartmouth, Illinois State, Missouri and Northwestern were among the schools that tried to recruit Scott, to no avail.
“I was a hometown boy,” Scott said. “I always wanted to go to Illinois. I did not make any (recruiting) trips.”
He started his career with the Illini as a recruited walkon, but became one of three freshmen elevated to positions on the special teams in his first year in college. He was on scholarship as a sophomore and lettered for three years as a safety.
When he graduated in 1979, it was with a bachelor’s degree in education, with a minor in art.
“I wanted to be a coach,” Scott said. “I thought, what are the two things I like? Sports and art. That’s why I went into that at the U of I.”
His first teaching and coaching jobs were at Tuscola, where he stayed for seven years.
A desire to be in the Chicago area led to him landing a job in 1986 in suburban Elgin as an elementary-school physical education teacher, with coaching assignments at Larkin High School in football and track. He was there for four years.
It turned into a life-changing move.
“I saw an artist painting on clothing,” Scott said. “I started painting on jean jackets, and it took off. I started selling them and doing fashion shows. I started doing coats that were going in stores in Chicago and in Vegas.”
Some coats have featured more than paint. Scott said he has done jackets with as many as “750 rhinestones.”
When Scott met the person who would become his wife, that led to more changes.
“I didn’t do a lot as far as professional painting,” he said. “She pushed me, in the right way, to get back into it.
“The next thing I knew, I had paintings in galleries and was doing the art fair circuit.”
And yet another change took place in 1990, when Scott left Elgin for a job in Hoffman Estates.
The position included teaching art, but that wasn’t the draw for the move.
“It was a way to get into a district that paid more money,” Scott said. “The opportunity was there, and I took it.”
His comfort zone was in the sports he coached. In football, he was reunited with a person he knew from his Illini days, Jim Rucks. He was also an assistant with the girls’ track and field program.
The greatest transition came in the classroom.
“I had never taught photography,” Scott said. “The department head taught me the day before. I learned day by day until I knew what I was doing.”
He learned well enough that when the department head retired, Scott was the choice as his replacement. He held that position for five years.
At Hoffman Estates, Scott had access to cutting edge technology.
“In 1990, Apple computers came in and we were one of the first ones in the country to use computers for classes in art,” Scott said. “We did digital photography way before anyone else did.”
The school district funded trips for Scott and the department chair to attend seminars “and learn to use these programs,” he said.
In addition to painting and photography, Scott also taught units on drawing and 3D animation.
He was enjoying success, not just with his teaching and coaching, but also with his paintings.
“I was getting some exposure,” he said. “I was in galleries on Michigan Avenue, in Barrington and in Vegas.”
His artwork also found a home in other random locations, which led to his meeting – and working for – some of sports’ greatest stars in hockey, football and basketball.
“I had work in a restaurant and that’s how Bobby Hull (ex-Chicago Blackhawk great) found out about me,” Scott said, “and I was commissioned to commemorate Bobby Hull’s and Stan Mikita’s induction into the Hall of Fame.”
Scott only needed to go to the coaching locker room at Hoffman Estates to meet up with ex-Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, who served a year as a volunteer basketball coach at the school.
“I did a coat for his wife,” Scott said.
He met former Chicago Bulls all-star Michael Jordan at a basketball camp in Elmhurst. Jordan, too, made an order.
“He had coats covered with images,” Scott said. “On the front was an image of him bouncing a ball over the city of Chicago.”
In 2012, Scott retired from teaching and coaching. He still finds time to take his brush to a canvas.
“I’m out of galleries now,” he said. “People don’t have disposable income. I do mostly commission work now.
“A lot of people want paintings for their homes.”
Just this week, Scott finished a painting for a special home. His own.
“I’m painting because my wife redecorated,” he said.
Scott works with his wife as a realtor and doesn’t have a set time to pursue his artwork.
“It’s basically whenever there’s a need for something to be painted,” he said.
Scott tries not to undertake a project unless he knows there’s time to complete it.
“When I start, it’s an obsession and I paint until it’s done,” he said. “It will be eight or nine hours straight, but then I don’t want to paint again for a while.”
The courses he took in college were helpful in some regards.
“At Illinois, I learned a lot about art history and educational art,” Scott said. “As far as technique, I’ve learned most of it on my own or from other artists.
“Art isn’t always a matter of talent. It’s a matter of knowing how to do it. A second part is patience and taking the time to look at every single detail.
“When you’re doing a figure, you need to know anatomy and how the body is constructed to do it correctly.”
Scott estimates that he has finished more than 100 paintings.
“I’ve sold most of them,” he said. “The ones I have (available) are on my web site (artrobertscott.com or Google Robert Scott Contemporary Realist).”
When working on a painting, Scott said he prefers to have an image or photograph available.
He has discovered one universal truth.
“It’s harder to paint what someone else wants than for yourself,” he said.
Some of the paintings he has done for himself are to preserve memories.
On a family vacation, he took a picture of his wife on a street in Paris and later, of a man they saw in Barcelona. Scott, who does both oil paintings and watercolor, captured the moments on film, and then got to work upon returning home.
“It’s neat to have those memories put on a canvas,” he said.
He enjoys spending his time at an easel, but can’t say he is fulfilling a lifetime ambition.
“I didn’t think I would do this professionally,” Scott said. “When I was younger, my mind was focused on sports.”
