> Don't feel bad. I didn't know most of those
> names until my last year of college, when I
> took a (required) class called Communicative
> Research.

Don't worry, I won't. ;)

> I'm sure you know who Norman Rockwell
> was.

Yep.

>J.C. Leyendecker was his predecessor and mentor >at the _Saturday Evening Post_.

That was one of the names I didn't recognize, and still doesn't ring a bell. Oh well. :)

> Haddon Sundblom is the artist who did all the
> Santa Clause paintings you see on
> Coca-Cola cans and bottles every Christmas.

Ah, see? I was betting that one of the people that I didn't recognize would be the artist of this, and I was right. ;)

> J.M. Flagg, of course, is the illustrator >famous for the "Uncle Sam" character. He invented
> Uncle Sam, and in fact used his own face as
> the model for it.

That I did not know, but obviously the work is noted.

> Howard Pyle is considered the "Father of
> Modern Illustration" and although a lot of
> people don't realize it, he created the character
> of Robin Hood and wrote and illustrated the
> tales of Sherwood, Nottingham, et al.

Hah, I recognized him AND knew about the Robin Hood thing. ;) So there.

> I wonder if Maxfield Parrish was one of the
> names you recognized? He did a lot of really
> interesting stuff. He has a color named after
> him (Maxfield Parrish blue.)

No, actually.

> N.C. Wyeth is the one I'm least familiar with. I
> think he did a lot of children's book
> illustrations. He was a student of Howard
> Pyle.

I recognized this one immediately, actually. Cool stuff.

> James Christensen is (I believe) the only one
> of the artists I mentioned who is alive and
> working today. He does a lot of fantasy
> illustration, and his work is very distinctive. I
> have one of his books. It's coool.

I recognized his name and have seen his work - you're right, it is cool. When I was up in Tahoe in... uh... November or October or something... there was a gallery there with a display of his work, and he was to visit in the next week... shame I couldn't have stayed to see.

> Gri"J.C. Leyendecker is my favorite"shny

I don't know that much about illustrators, but I do like a ton of artists... Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent VanGogh are my favorites, followed by a wide range of other people... from masters like Vermeer and Degas to more contemporary genre artists like Michael Whelan to amateurs like Dee Dreslough... to people I don't even know the name of, like whoever did the character design work for Ah! My Goddess and those ancient Greek sculptors who no one knows the names of. Art is cool stuff.

Sosi"wants to learn more about character design... darn that the class is only open to animation/illustration majors"qui