"Illustration is perhaps the most important talent a designer must possess in order to convey ideas to a client at the appropriate time. If an illustrator can approach the level of the ancient masters, then he/she has the talent to be truly successful." This is what Ron Cook has told his students for years. "One must be able to see the light fall on an object within his mind as well as in reality to rise to the top as a designer."

Cook has been drawing since he was three and at one time was taking art at the university level when he was in the seventh grade. He has the eye.

Considering how long he has been drawing and painting, Cook must have done thousands of illustrations during his career as a designer. He taught it for 15 years to some of the best. Many of the illustrators became employees and some still work with him on various accounts. I taught myself, and then my students, how to emulate almost every technique available and worked in every medium. My favorite is acrylics, but just behind that one is oil. I love to walk into a studio and smell oil paints.

Cook worked with oils for almost ten years and did a massive commission in Houston for a promoter. "That was around 28 paintings and they were very large -- some were 5' X12' and the least was 4'X6'." That commission got him started with the use of an Agent. But that was what Cook calls Fine Art. Illustration was and is his thing.

Magazines always intrigued Cook. He liked the format and loved the double-page spread. Indians seemed to be the thing to Cook who can trace a little Cherokee back in his family history which is primarily German. He worked for a publisher who did history publications and it suited him fine to do any and all illustrations for those books.

Because Cook studied the history books in order to illustrate them, he became a history and Archaeology specialist and has never stopped his intellectual hobby since.

Illustration for the worldwide web is becoming the most important forum for many designers and illustrators. With the improvements in resolution and software, browsers can offer the practitioner a place to show his wears. Companies who utilize the new and amplified means of selling ideas are finding the new illustrations intellectually deep and fantastically powerful in attracting the mind of the more youthful clientele.

Many authors are putting their books up on line for readers to get amplified versions of their works. Some are incorporating movement in their representations to amplify visual impact at web sites. Cook will certainly be exploring this new area since he has one e-book on line and will be adding others to this site in the future. He believes it is an evolving forum for future creators. It will be everything all rolled into one media site or what he calls "Mirror-Realms" -- instant gratification.