Roberts Howard attended The School of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where he mastered classical painting, drawing methods and techniques. With over forty years of experience in all aspects of art and having operated The Studio for Illustration, he now operates a busy portrait studio. During that forty year period he illustrated eleven books for several publishers. The Sakura Company sponsored an exhibition of his work in five cities in Japan. His Japanese publisher is Yugakusha Ltd. His book illustrations are in the collection of both The Boston Public Library and The Kerlan Collection.

DC Heath, Lothrop Lee and Shepard, McGraw-Hill and Crowell-Collier have all published books of his illustrations. His illustrations have toured in numerous shows and museums. Over the years, he has illustrated and designed book covers for Little Brown, Houghton Mifflin, Allyn Bacon, Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Berkely Books and Dell; these covers number in the hundreds.

Howard's executive portraits are a mainstay of his practice. Among his many corporate clients are Apollo Computer, Bank of Boston, BASF, Coca-Cola, Codex, Compugraphic, Converse, Daisy Mfg., Data General, Digital, Filene's, Fisher-Price, Gillette, Heublein, Honeywell Computer, John Hancock Insurance, Jordan Marsh, Lotus, Nynex, Ocean Spray, Papa Gino, Prime Computer, Reebok, Sony, St.Regis Paper and Wang.

He wrote and illustrated The Illustrators Bible, the top-selling definitive sourcebook of illustrator's techniques, published in the U.S and U.K by Watson-Guptill, New York. He also wrote Gouache For Illustration for the same publisher. Gouache was the first book written on this subject in 30 years. Currently he is at work on two interactive art instruction books on CD as well as a series of instructional DVDs on painting technique.

An acknowledged master of painting technique, Howard founded and operated the Artist Forum on CompuServe, with an eye toward reviving traditional painting technique. With over 60,000 subscribing artist/members, Artist Forum became the largest professional art resource in the world. He closed Artist Forum to start the Cennini Forum where he remains dedicated to informing and aiding serious artists.