One of my favorite illustrators is a Frenchman by the name of Guy Billout.
I'm going to show you how his name is spelled
so that you can look him up if you wish.
He has a very simple, straightforward style, but his pure, unexpected
whimsy with his treatment of light and shadow is his hallmark.
You can expect to see his shadows take on a life of their own or a
beam of light from a lighthouse shifting its
straight line and detouring around a ship at sea.
I would have to imagine several of the shadow treatments we
just discussed also owe a debt of origin to Guy's illustrations.
I have what I think will be a fun
challenge for you and it's going to require a
touch of sketching so I suggest you find a
pencil and a sheet of paper for this exercise.
This is less about testing your drawing
skills than it is about testing your imagination.
It starts out simple enough.
I'd like for you to draw ten circles on the page.
Mine are about oh, a half inch in diameter and loosely drawn.
No need for perfection here.
I probably am leaving about an inch and half of margin between them.
Maybe think of these circles as balls or round rocks.
They have some dimension for sure and what we are going to
do is try to invent a unique shadow for each one of them.
Think about some of the categories we've just discussed.
I want to see you play with what the shadow is
or if it's gravity defying or where the light's coming from.
Again, we're not critiquing drawing style here.
Just trying to be as inventive with
the shadows, and his diversing concepts is possible.
You have five minutes to do this, so I'll check back with you in just a few.