Day of the Decoration Art Ninja

I'm Ricky. I live in Bristol.

By day, I work as an animator, which is lucky, cos I love art.

I live for art. I even dream of art.

I draw...

I paint...

I make things.

I hang out with my mates Gavin, Michelle and Sarah.

SCREAMS

Most importantly, I make ninja moves.

Some people call me the...

Art Ninja!

Today, I'll show you cow... I mean how, to make a bull's head hoopla.

I'll whip up ghostly wallpaper that's so good, it's spooky,

and watch the paint fly in a slow-mo masterpiece, because, today, it's...

Day of the decoration.

ALARM CLOCK BEEPS

It's a new day.

Time to get my Ninja on.

And my clothes!

And today is not so much about painting, but decorating,

so let's get rolling.

I know what would bring this flat to life - a game of giant hoopla.

The Art Ninja bull's head hoopla.

It's got a nice ring to it.

So, I've got some big cardboard down here,

and I'm going to draw on it a great big shield to work as my back board.

You need a hole to hang it up. Nice big one there.

Now, I'm going to cut that out.

There we are. Now, I'm going to put that to one side,

cos I'll need it in a moment.

I've got some more cardboard here.

And, on this, I'm going to draw the profile of the bull's head.

You can look online for some nice looking silhouettes for inspiration.

Going to cut that out.

There you are. That's one.

Right, we're going to need two of these. Ninja skills!

OK, now I'm going to score a line down the inside,

about two centimetres from the back of the bull's head.

I'm going to use a ruler.

It's a bit safer than scissors.

And one on the other one. There we are.

And now we're going to fold it along here, and these are going to

work as flaps, to attach the bull's head to my back board.

There we are. All right, let's bring over the back board.

Now, you can attach these with glue stick and sticky tape,

or double-sided sticky tape.

Line-up with the middle...

..and sticky up the other one.

Sticky one next to it.

Again, make sure they line up nicely.

I'm going to reinforce it with a strip here,

so I'm going to cover that with some glue,

and this strip is the same width as the two folds put together.

And make it nice and strong. Lovely!

Now I need to make the separate parts of the nose and the head,

that'll hold it all together.

OK, I've got some more cardboard over here,

and the lid of some soft cheese or spread,

and I'm going to draw around that, for the first part of the nose.

And I'm going to cut that out.

And then I'm going to draw a couple of lines on here, that I'm going to

use as slits, to slide over the two parts of the bull's head.

I've drawn the lines to about two centimetres from the top,

about five centimetres apart.

I'm going to cut those out.

That's the first part of the nose.

OK, I've got another bit of card.

I'm going to draw around the lid again.

I'm going to turn it like that,

and I'm going to draw around it the other way round.

I'm going to draw the same lines up this one,

to two centimetres away from the top,

and just remembering that this space here is the same distance apart

as that strip we used to separate the bull's head.

There we go.

Here's some other bits that I've cut, and, as you can see,

each one is slightly bigger than the previous one, about two centimetres.

The two biggest pieces of card will need to be turned around,

and the slits cut the other way.

These will form the bull's head.

The smaller four pieces of card will form the nose.

So, move these to one side.

This layer, second from the back, gets some ears,

and I've pre-cut them.

And just to keep 'em in the style,

I've layered up a second bit here, so it's like the inside of the ear.

Bit of double-sided sticky tape.

Go on the side of the head there, and that one goes on to there.

There we go. Looking much more like a bull.

Now, this next layer is going to look a lot like a bull,

cos it's going to have the horns on it.

Now, I've pre-cut the horns, and I've doubled them up,

cos they need to be quite strong,

cos they're going to hold the rings, and I've put some double-sided

sticky tape here, to attach them to the back of the head.

Now, I've folded them here, and close to the tip,

just to make them look more like horns.

Right, I can start sliding them on to the bull's head.

Now, it's good to start with the front one, because it holds the

whole thing together and keeps it stiff, so you can get the others on.

Just slide the next one on like that.

There.

The ears...

and now, the horns.

The horns on.

Let's see how it's working.

Right, let's hang it up. Oh, look at that!

It's time to play!

I've made some hoops out of card by drawing around a bowl and

cutting out the middle.

Ooh!

Ah! Bull's-eye! Well, bull's horn.

The bull's head hoopla. Are you game to have a go?

Hey, you guys!

This guy is such a creep!

Have you ever wanted to creep up and play tricks on your mates?

Told you.

Now, you can surprise them with this incredible gassy ghost!

Here's how you make it.

You'll need two pieces of card, one white and one black,

and a pair of scissors.

With care, cut some shapes from the card, two arms from the white,

eyes and nose from the black.

Next, you'll need a white plastic bag,

and some double-sided sticky tape.

Use the tape to stick the eyes and mouth to the bag.

Peely-peely, sticky-sticky.

Stick the arms on, too.

Now you need a white balloon.

Inflate said balloon, but do not tie it. Careful now!

Don't let go of that balloon.

Put the balloon inside the bag while holding the end.

It now looks like a scary ghost. It's very convincing.

The gassy ghost!

Why don't you make one, and let one go!

They'd be good to cover up your own bottom burps.

I'll have to get me some of those.

Urgh!

I'm pretty sure that picture moves on its own.

It's almost as if it's animated.

This is my friend, Dan.

He's been cultivating a pretty impressive beard. Nice!

So fluffy! Hang on, Dan! What are you doing?

Are you some kind of cunning beard peeling spy?

Oh, no, my mistake. It's just an animation!

A hairy one.

So, to make this awesome animation,

all you're going to need is some wool or thread,

some clippers, a tablet, a pen and paper,

and a beardy friend, who's willing to be shaved.

And you can make this animation in just three ninja moves.

Ninja move number one.

I'm going to start by drawing myself some storyboards.

The whole point of doing them is to plan out what you're going to do.

I reckon you'll have, like, your hand up there,

and I think we'll cut as you start pulling,

and go to a nice, sort of, head-on shot as the beard unravels.

When was the last time you actually took your beard off?

-About a year ago.

-Are you feeling confident?

-I love it.

I'm feeling confident. Right. Let's do it.

Ninja move number two.

As Dan's going to be our animation model,

it's really important that he stays really still in between our frames.

Isn't that right, Dan?

I said, "Stay still." Perfect!

Then, you need to get a bit of wool, or whatever you're using,

and hide it inside the beard.

I'm going to animate Dan coming in and pulling this thread out.

We're going to have it go across his face, and we're going to shave

the space behind it, to make it look like the beard's unravelling.

If you're going to be using clippers,

it's probably a good idea that you get some adult supervision.

It's OK for us, cos we're, believe it or not, both adults.

Ninja move number three.

As your model's beard unravels,

you need to capture all your frames on your tablet device.

I'm using a free animation app.

Just search around and find one that you like.

If I look at my storyboard, my first shot is

kind of a three-quarters on the side of Dan's face.

Make sure you only shave a willing family member or friend,

otherwise, you and me will both be in a hairy situation.

So, now it's to that point, I think.

OK, Dan. We're all done. And you look good, though.

You look nice. Yeah.

Anyway, I've compiled all the frames.

I think it's time for us to take a look at our mini masterpiece.

Ow! Beardy-weirdy!

Time for some decorating, I think.

Ah! Right then, flat, let's make you look slick.

Where should I start painting?

Oh! Ah!

Didn't clean my brushes. All stuck together.

I can't use these.

And if I can't use the brushes,

the only way I'm going to decorate this flat

is with a spot of wallpapering.

I'll be right back.

Well, that didn't go too well.

Wallpaper's not exactly on the wall.

I look like a mummy. Do you know what?

I've got an idea how I could fix this. Ah!

Ah!

Just as scary as a mummy is a ghost, so I'm going to make myself some

ghostly wallpaper using a technique known as tessellation.

-Yo, Ricky!

-Who are you?

I'm the famous artist, Maurits Cornelis Escher,

but you can call me MC. When it comes to rapping, I have the key.

It's not just rapping, dancing and popping,

I also like to make art that's interlocking.

Here's one of Escher's famous interlocking tessellations.

Tessellation is an interlocking pattern,

and I'm going to make some using a little piece of card here.

I'm going to start drawing my ghostly shapes on it.

I need to make sure that the shapes link up perfectly with

three of the corners.

That's three of the corners.

I need to cut those shapes out.

I need to be careful now, because these shapes need to interlock.

Also, I need to be careful, because these scissors are quite sharp.

So, here, all of these shapes perfectly fit together.

I'm going to take this one over the other side,

and when that happens, we start to create the shape of the ghost, see?

His head's here, there's his other arm coming up,

and then this one here is going to come down to the bottom,

but then we're going to flip it.

And this means that our first set of ghosts are going to be

facing one way, and then our next layer down,

those ghosts will be facing the other way.

It makes your picture more dynamic.

Using some sticky tape, make sure your pieces join up

in the right places.

Now we've got our first ghost template shape,

we can now get a big piece of paper, and start drawing round the shape.

Thankfully, there's a nice big line running down the side of our ghost,

and we can use that as a guide to line him up with the paper.

Just for the first one.

Whoa! Perfectly interlocks. That's a good sign.

And notice here that also it interlocks here, too.

Now I'm going to come down and do the second line,

and you can see here, it doesn't fit in,

because we turned the bottom round,

and that's so we can make a more interesting picture here.

We can have these ghosts facing that way,

and those ones facing that way.

You don't have to do a ghost.

You can try any shape, or anything you think of.

It's best to keep the shape quite simple,

because, otherwise, the interlocking can get a bit tricky.

I'm just finishing up the bottom here,

to make sure the pattern continues off the page.

Using a thick black pen,

I'm drawing just inside the pencil on some of them.

You'll see why later.

I've missed this one out here,

and I'm going to jump on to the one afterwards and do the same.

I'm also adding facial expressions to them.

Draw the faces in of the other ghosts, and I'm not going to fill

in the mouths on this one, cos I'm going to paint this guy black.

You may not be able to see the tessellation yet,

but when I start painting, it will reveal itself.

As some of them are white and some of them are black, I'm only going to

paint every other one, the ones that I haven't done an outline for.

OK, I've marked each one that I need to paint, by throwing a big

bit of black paint in the middle.

I need to be careful, and only paint up to the pencil lines.

Obviously, when you're doing yours at home, it would be good

to put some paper down.

This black and white effect, like this kind of checker-boarding,

really helps to emphasise the tessellation effect.

My last ghost. Right.

If you do one of these, you have to wait for it to dry,

but I'm going to use my ninja skills.

I'm going to add the same lines as I've done on the white ghosts

on to the black ghosts with a white pencil.

I think I'm done.

What do you think of my tessellation picture then, MC Escher?

A few more pictures just like that,

you'll have new wallpaper for your flat.

Wallpaper tessellation inspired by MC Escher.

Why don't you get stuck in?

At least I no longer look like a mummy.

PHONE RINGING

Speaking of Mummy...

Hi, Ricky!

I suppose you're too busy to answer the phone to your mum, are you?

Yeah, I am. Glue everywhere. Blame Escher!

Well, you won't blame me for telling you what's coming up.

You're on a roll with a temporary tattoo...

Oh, look at that!

..you'll sketch a scary character...

and you'll be helping Sarah with some painting!

You'd better get on with it.

I know you, Ricky, I bet you haven't even drawn the curtains yet.

Bye!

I've only got blinds.

And I can draw more than the curtains.

Mum can sometimes be a scary character,

but she's a softie at heart.

Here's a quick art tip of how to draw someone truly scary.

The best way to draw a scary character is to use pointy shapes,

so I'm going to start by drawing a face that's

an upside down triangle shape.

Then I'm going to add slanty eyes that lean in to the centre.

This makes him look a lot more mean and angry.

And you can accentuate that with some eyebrows doing the same thing.

Then have a pointy nose and ears,

and then, I think, my scary character's going to be a vampire,

so I'm going to draw the mouth with some fangs.

Let's pop some hair in there.

Then, with the body, I'm going to keep it quite thin and lean.

He's going to be doing a scary pose, putting his arms in the air.

Maybe in this pose he's doing a nasty laugh, going...

LAUGHS

Going to add some big, scary claws on the end.

To finish, I'm going to add a pointy collar, bat wings under

the arms...

..and a nice big moon, to make his surroundings scary.

Vampires never come out in the day time.

There you go.

A quick art tip.

Now, try and draw your own scary character.

It could be shockingly good.

Yah!

The thing about being an Art Ninja, is you're ready for anything.

BOTH: Ricky! Ricky! Ricky!

Made me jump! What can I help you with?

BOTH: Ricky, what can you make with a ruler?

-A ruler? I have to draw the line somewhere.

-BOTH: Oh!

BOTH: Ricky! What can you make with this?

That looks interesting. I choose you!

BOTH: Yay!

-What are your names?

-I'm Courtney.

-And I'm Kyra.

Nice to meet you, Courtney and Kyra. Where are you guys from?

-BOTH: Bristol.

-Bristol? You should've popped in.

Anyway, what have you got for me?

BOTH: Can you make art with a cardboard tube?

Cardboard tube?

Do you know what, I think I've got some kitchen roll laying around.

I'll just go and grab one of those.

I brought myself some glue, some paint, a pot to put it in,

a little paper plate.

I'm going to use that for when I'm gluing.

And, of course, cardboard tube.

And what I'm going to make with this is a rollable print

that you can use for a temporary tattoo.

-Does that sound cool?

-Yeah.

Awesome. So, I'm going to start drawing my design.

Draw it on this little bit of card here.

What's a good design? Pirates have a lot of tattoos, don't they?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. Skull and crossbones, me thinks. Do you guys like pirates?

BOTH: Yeah.

Yeah, who doesn't like pirates, eh?

I'm trying to draw this with an unbroken line, so it all joins

together in one, and you'll see why when I take it on to the next step.

For the chin and then, of course, crossbones.

OK.

I am going to glue some string along the lines,

so I can use it to make a print.

There we go.

And I'm trying to glue it down to the line that I've drawn,

to raise it from the paper.

Good tip is to use a cocktail stick,

because it stops your fingers getting too sticky.

So, this little thing here is going to be for decorating your arms,

but I've spent a lot of the day decorating my flat, or trying to.

If you could decorate your room any way you wanted to,

-how would you do it?

-Paint my walls blue.

Paint it blue? Courtney?

Paint it orange.

Would you paint a mural in your room or anything like that?

-I'd paint moustaches.

-Moustaches? Why's that?

-I'm obsessed with them.

-Fair enough.

I've got a giant moustache pillow, as well, if you want to see it?

Yeah, all right.

Yeah! Awesome!

Maybe you could make a temporary tattoo moustache.

LAUGHS

Although it would mean printing it on your face.

You know what, guys? If you're playing outside later, maybe

you could have a go at the temporary tattoos and impress your mates.

Excellent. It's dried quite quickly. And there we are.

-Look at that. You see how it's raised?

-That's wicked.

-Whoa!

Right, the next stage is to attach it to the tube.

So, I'm just going to roll it round like that,

and hold it in place with a little bit of sticky tape.

And I'm doing this so that it's easier to apply the prints.

I'm only going to do it up one end.

If I do it in the middle, it'll be harder to roll, so, there,

I can hold on to this end when I want to apply it on this side.

See that now? So we can roll it on.

Now, I'm going to paint on to the strings.

And the paint I'm using is poster paint,

which means it won't harm your skin, and it washes off.

I've got my paint here.

And I'm going to pat it on to the string.

See how the raised string takes the poster paint.

You could do this any colour you wanted to.

You could obviously do it blue, or orange,

but I want it to be quite dark and pirate-y, so I'm doing it black.

Making sure every single little bit of the string's covered.

Right, think it's ready to print. Wish me luck!

Good luck!

Here we go.

Oh, look at that! Do you guys want to see it?

-Yeah.

-OK, here you go.

-BOTH: Wow!

-Is that a good tattoo?

-Yeah.

-Pretty good, eh?

And the good thing about a temporary tattoo is that

I can wash it off and try a new design tomorrow.

What do you guys give it out of ten?

BOTH: We give it a ta-two.

Ta... Oh, a ta-two.

Well, I give you a seven-and-a-half for your joke.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. You've been awesome.

-BOTH: Thanks, Ricky!

-Cheers then. Bye-bye!

-BOTH: Bye!

Why don't you design your own temporary tattoo, too?

PHONE RINGING

Ah, it's my mate, Sarah.

Hey, Sarah! What's that?

You want me to come to your flat and help do some painting?

Her flat's a right tip. It could do with a lick of paint.

Yeah, yeah, sure, I'd love to.

I've been trying to do it in my flat anyway.

Cool. I'll see you later.

Oh, no, but my paint brushes are all stuck together.

I'll have to go and get some new ones.

Shops are closed now.

It's the only brush I could find. It'll have to do.

Off to Sarah's.

Ninja skills!

Ooh! A note from Sarah.

"Dear Ricky. I've had to pop out. Please start painting without me."

This is going to take some doing. Going to have to get some help.

Hi, Gavin. Yeah, bit of an emergency.

I'm a ninja down. Could you come quick, please?

-It'll be really...

-Hello, mate!

-Hi, dude! That was quick.

-Always happy to help, buddy.

Right. Basically we've got to paint this place with this.

-Wow!

-Mm-hmm.

I don't think we're going to be able to do this, mate.

Let me check my pockets, see if there's anything for inspiration.

Got this.

-A balloon?

-Yeah.

Have you got any more of those?

Yeah, about 400 more, I think.

It gives me a rad idea.

But first, let's get our ninja on.

Art Ninja!

Art Ninja.

OK, Gavin, let's do this.

Do what?

Balloon, paint, this.

Sweet!

Wow, I think this looks incredible.

I think Sarah's going to absolutely love this!

Love it? She's going to go wild for it!

SHE SCREAMS

What have you done to my flat?

Do you like it? We've painted it for you.

Just like you asked.

I wanted a painting to go on my white wall, not painted.

I'm sorry, Sarah. I promise we'll clear it all up.

And it better be done by the time I get back!

Anyway, sorry, Ricky, I've got to go. I've got a hair appointment.

I can't believe he's given me the brush off.

This is going to take me ages.

I'd better get my teeth into it.

Well, I did it. Sarah's flat is restored to its former glory,

and Sarah did get a piece of art.

I sent her our film of it as video art.

Today has taught me a valuable Art Ninja lesson.

If you're asked to paint a mate's room,

it's not always best to use a balloon.

Hang on! I forgot to brush my teeth.

HE SCREAMS

To get your Art Ninja on, go to the CBBC website. Ninja skills!