Here is my short list of great living realism artists that I have been able to discover in my extensive searches for beautiful art:
Burton Silverman, Maybe the best living artist oil painter today. Really beautiful spontaneous loose oil painting work and gorgeous charcoal drawings. My wife interned for him, he's very friendly and talkative.
Daniel Adel, Maybe the greatest Illustrator around. Great work including great illustrative whimsical work along with really wonderful photography, oil painting portraits and watercolors. I would consider his work similar to my future goals. Just so proficient in all areas.
Jeremy Lipking, really great oil painter, beautiful moods. Very loose with nice colors, though he is young I like his older work. He actually has a lot of people copying his style these days.
Joe Sorren, I guess he is out of the realism area, but I love his work and original colors. I bought his little red book and love it. I wish I was an originality genius like Joe.
Doug Fryer(and here), Doug was one of my best teachers at BYU, he has moved from illustration to more of an loosely painted landscape specialist but he still does great figures. His landscapes are absolutely brilliant with incredible colors and atmosphere.
His style is close to a similarly impressive Michael Workman.
Lucong, great portraits that are handled with interesting colors and a nice sense of atmosphere. He has done what I've been trying to acomplish with paintings of people that are more then just a portrait because of the way they are handled and their composition.
Donald Jurney, beautiful landscapes and fantastic compositions and colors. Great realistic landscape artist.
Jacob Collins, More nice oil paintings. Maybe a little too technical for me but great figure paintings. I like the colors too, nice skin tones.
Jeffrey Jones, some wild original stuff. I am not usually into fantasy but this is just great work.
Igor Malnikov, I found this guys art in Santa Fe, and thought it was cool. It's got the Russian feeling going for it, very moody but well painted faces.
Michael Grimaldi, I like this guys style. Really interesting paintings with great drawing. It's a little dark, but very talented.
Richard Schmid, an unbelievable painter, up with Silverman's caliber. He has a really simple style that works if you can put every stroke in the perfect spot the first time, I can't. Not a useful website though, but it'll give you the idea. I do highly recommend his book.
Tony Ryder, really bright colors and a precise style that I like. Check out his demos.
William Whitaker, great figure paintings and painting technique, and he's my mentor.
Morgan Wiestling, Not necessarily my style but a good painter. Some are a little sappy, but others are really wonderful, the Christmas Mary and child painting is very nice.
Digital:
Oren Haskins, A new artist I just came across, but absolutely genius with his lines and shapes. I am in love with his loose drawing style. He has represents all of the best parts of another great, Claire Wendling.
Cali Rezo, I think that's the name? I just came across this one recently, she is French and has some cool digital paintings.
Neil Campbell Ross, this guy is really one of the best. Fantastic digital painting work, really loose but it works so well. Make sure to see his environments. I love the change from tight digital work. His blog is a little easier to navigate.
Craig Mullins, I almost hate to admit it because he is a fantasy artists god, but Mullins is a great artist. Beautiful environments and some great figures. The website is a little clumsy in my opinion which makes it hard to skim through.
This isn't comprehensive, but these are the people who have a folder on my computer. A couple of other good references are the Art Renewal Center, the webs best collection of classical realism art. Finally, the Arcadia Gallery in NY, always has nice realism art.
If there are others I haven't found, that you think might fit into this list, please tell me.