Day of the Spider 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, Rich and Sarah.

'Most importantly, I make ninja moves.

'Some people call me the...

'Today I'll show you how to use spin painting

'to make a butterfly picture,

'weave an art ninja rug...

'and it's time for some...

'web design in the woods,

'because today it's...'

It's a new day. Time to get my ninja on.

And my clothes.

Hang on. I just need to grab something.

Great! I knew I still had it.

It's my old neckerchief when I used to belong to the Danger Rangers.

I had every single badge...

apart from one, the Arachnid Handler badge.

Whatever that is.

Maybe I should try and get my final badge.

I could take a picture of me doing the activity

and send it over to my old Danger Rangers unit.

Hey, Gav. Fancy doing something rad and intense?

Cool. I'll see you soon.

The Danger Rangers was all about the great outdoors,

so I'm going to make a butterfly picture inspired by Damien Hirst.

I'm going to use a salad spinner to make a spin painting.

Pop some paper in there and paint, give it a whirl

and watch it run everywhere.

A popular Damien Hirst technique.

-All right, Ricky?

-Is that you, Damien? You scared me!

-Why are you wearing a mask?

-It's one of me works, innit?

It's a skull of crystals called For The Love Of God.

And why are you on a jar of pickles?

Cos I once pickled a dead cow in something called formaldehyde.

I prefer your spin paintings.

'And here's a great example.'

I'm inspired to do some spin painting now.

So, I don't want to splat you. I'm just going to turn you around.

Oi! Talk about liberties!

I'll leave him lurkin' with the gherkins

while I carry on with my butterfly picture.

Got a bit of paper and a plate here.

I'm going to draw round that with a pencil.

I'm going to cut that out.

Now with a little bit of sticky tack I'm going to

stick my paper to the bottom of the salad spinner.

'I'm using an old one I don't mind getting paint on.'

Now I'm going to put in some dollops of paint.

It doesn't matter if they overlap a bit.

It just means they might mix together as it's spinning.

Time to give it a spin!

It looks amazing!

All the colours have run nicely

and mixed together towards the edge of the disc.

I could wait for this to dry, but not me!

Ninja skills!

Now with a pencil I'm just going to draw on my butterfly shape.

Going to cut that out.

Now, I'm going to need a lot of butterflies

and I'm going to cut them all out

and arrange them into a beautiful picture.

I'm going to draw round this butterfly now as my template

so they're all exactly the same.

Right, here's my first set, my five butterflies.

But I'm going to need a lot more of these

if I want to make my picture, so I'm going to use some ninja skills.

That should do it.

Got a nice, big bit of paper here, and I'm going to arrange

my butterflies on it and glue them down with a little bit of PVA glue.

And folding them up like this just makes the butterflies

pop out from the page.

I'm going to do a line, I think, for it, like this,

maybe turn it into, like, a big starburst of butterflies.

And don't worry if yours start to fall over,

cos you can always perk the wings back up once the glue's dried.

Just adding a few more in between the lines

to create this nice circular pattern.

It's very similar to what Damien Hirst actually did himself.

Look at that!

They could almost be alive, every single one a beautiful,

unique, colourful butterfly. I think it's so good it deserves a frame.

I think this looks truly amazing.

But you can try a different arrangement!

You don't have to do butterflies. You could do jets instead

to take the art to a whole different "plane".

KNOCK AT DOOR

That must be Gavin.

-Oh, hi, Gav, how's it going?

-Good, mate.

Seeing as you wanted something rad and intense,

I brought my pet arachnid. He's called Spider.

Firstly, can I say sp...sp...sp...

-Spider.

-Mm-hm. Original name! Secondly, can I say

AAAARRRGGGHHHH!

-Careful, mate, you'll scare him!

-I'LL scare HIM?

This is why I never got my Arachnid Handler

badge at the Danger Rangers.

Just keep that sp...sp...

-Spider.

-Mm-hm. ..away from me.

-OK.

Oh, he's coming in. Yay...

Gav, I'm just going to go over here for a bit.

I've got a quick art tip here of how to draw a scared character.

I'm going to start by drawing the head.

Then I'm going to add some eyes and a wide mouth...

..to show the shock.

I'm going to put eyebrows in angled towards the centre

of the head, and I'm going to draw the hair all standing up on end.

A couple of ears...

And now I'm going to draw the body.

And I'm going to do the hands next to his face,

sort of like... GASPS

..in a kind of scream expression.

Draw his shorts now.

And I'm going to do his knees a little bit bent, facing inwards

like they're knocking together in fear.

A couple of wavy lines as if he's shivering.

And of course, what's he scared of?

Well, I'm going to draw something in for him to look at now.

There we go.

A quick art tip.

'Don't be scared! Have a go yourself.'

Gavin, if you could just keep that sp...sp...

-Spider!

-Mm-hm. ..away from me, safely over there in its box,

weaving its little web...

Oh, that gives me an idea for some art!

I'm going to make...

the Art Ninja rug!

OK, I've got a nice, big bit of card here.

'I've drawn a ninja on it, but you can draw whatever you like.'

Now, with a pencil and a ruler...

I'm going to leave little marks on the top and bottom,

about a centimetre apart.

And now the top side.

Now I'm going to cut some slits up these lines,

about one centimetre deep.

I know it's not looking like a rug yet, but what I'm doing is

making a weaving board that I can make my rug on.

I've got some black wool here

and I'm going to use that to create the lines that

I can weave in-between.

So I'm just sliding the wool in-between the two

slots at the top here, and the first one I'm going to tie off.

I'm just going to start... wrapping it round.

I'm pulling the wool taut in-between the slots

so it keeps the weave together nice and tight.

I'm going to tie that off at the back.

Just trim off those little bits.

Now I've got a perfect weave board, I can start weaving.

So, I've got strips of white material here.

I'm going to start with the detail of the eyes.

I'm going to start by just tying it in.

Now, you can get the material from anywhere you like.

You can even use old T-shirts and clothes.

I'm going to try and keep the material nice and flat

and weave over the first piece of wool and then under the second.

And I'm going to go back on myself here, so wrap it round,

and then I'm going to go back the opposite way,

so where my material's gone over I'm going to go under

and where I've gone under I'm going to go over.

Creates this nice kind of brickwork pattern.

That's great. I'm just going to tie that off.

Now I'm going to move on to the other eye.

Now I'm going to start with the black of the ninja and get weaving!

Since this is the background, I need to weave underneath the eyes.

Now I'm going to do the red background.

Now, I've cut these slightly longer than the board.

It just means I can tie them off later.

And the end bits become cool kind of ruggy tassels.

And I'm pushing it all to the top to keep it tucked in nice and tight.

I'm just weaving red under the black of the ninja,

and it's really starting to take shape and stand out now.

I'm going to start tying off the red ends,

literally tying the one with the one next to it.

I'm going to double-knot them so they're nice and secure.

Do that all the way down both sides. Now I need to cut it off the card.

I've got to cut through all these strands of wool.

I'm going to turn it over - carefully!

And then I'm going to tie these off in pairs,

pull them off over the front, pull them in tight and double-knot them.

Now it's completely off the card.

Just need to clean up these edges.

Be careful not to cut past the knot, because then it'll all unravel.

Now, I've cut out some little extra shapes of material here to add some

final detail, and I'm going to stick them on with a bit of fabric glue.

Ninja headband.

Pupils.

I'm going to finish with a little cheeky ninja grin.

I'm going to weave this underneath the wool so it looks like teeth.

There you go. I think that looks absolutely incredible.

You don't have to make a rectangular one.

You could make any shape you like! How about a nice circular one?

I wove this one on the inside of a Hula Hoop.

# Art Ninja! #

Gav! I really wanted to get the badge I didn't get

while I was at Danger Rangers, but your little friend Sp...Sp...

-Spider!

-..gives me the creeps.

I don't think I could do a camping trip outside.

There's only one thing for it.

We'll camp inside!

I'll see if I can find a tent.

While I find some canvas to sleep under indoors,

here's a canvas that never stops moving.

That's because it's animated.

-Ohhh!

-Nice move!

CARS RACE

-Do you want a tea break?

-Yeah, I'll have a tea break.

-A bit of cake?

-Oh, yeah, go on, then.

-OK.

There we go.

-Can I have a slice of the weird blue one, please?

-Yeah, sure!

-GULP! GULP!

-Yummy!

'What was that?! Let's have another look.

'This red character is eating the green apple!'

Whoa! I think that cake's got a secret ingredient.

And it's animation!

So, you can make this awesome slice of action with some

modelling clay or modelling dough, a butter knife or some wire

and a tablet or smartphone with animation app installed.

'And you can put it together in just three ninja moves.

'Ninja move number one.'

Planning. I've kept my character quite simple.

They're just geometric shapes.

I need to think about how they're going to

change as they move along.

So, I want it to start with its mouth open then have mouth closed

and then go back to open again.

So I'm going to try and draw, like, an isometric picture of it

so that I can plan out how it's going to move.

So, that's going to be the tube of my modelling clay moving

diagonally through the loaf.

I'm going to start with his mouth open.

So, his mouth open is like that. And he ends with his mouth open.

And maybe a little mouth open in the middle.

And then on the way he has a little snack, doesn't he?

So I'm going to put that bit here.

And...

..that one's just going to run down like that.

'Ninja move number two.'

Now it's time to start making my loaf.

I'm using modelling dough, because it's much easier to morph around.

Now for my character.

So, you see I've made this long cylinder going through with

little cuts taken out of it.

Well, I need to make a long sausage that travels through

the whole of the loaf. And I've mounted it across the base.

Now I'm going to add his little bit of food.

Use some green there for that. Again, it's another long sausage.

And now I know where the apple is going to meet his body,

I can start cutting in the mouth.

I've cut it so it opens and closes and opens and closes.

I've then lined up the apple so it goes into the mouth.

And now all around the rest of it I need to fill it in with

another colour clay.

'So I'm going to use blue.

'Ninja move number three.'

I've got my loaf ready to go, I've got my tablet device

with my animation app open, and I can start firing some shots.

I need to take a little slice each time, and I'm going to

use this bit of wire here because it's a bit cleaner,

and I'm going to take a photograph of the cross-section.

I'm going to move along about five mil each time,

half a centimetre.

OK, I've taken all of my frames, I've compiled them

into my animation app, I've added a few sound effects.

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

-GULP! GULP!

-Yummy!

GULP! GULP! BURP!

-Gav, see if you can get what shadows I'm making with my torch.

-OK, mate.

Ah, that's easy, that's a bird.

Yeah! How about this? OK, right...

Whoa, that's magic!

Not really. It's a cheeky template I cut out.

Oh, you little...!

PHONE RINGS

'Hi, Ricky! It's your mum! Stop wrestling indoors!

'Here's what you should be doing.

'There's some blooming great art using tissue paper.

'Watch out for a commercial message in a bottle.

'And when you go down to the woods today,

'you'll be sure of an art surprise.

'Anyway, bye, Ricky. Take care! Don't let the bedbugs bite.'

We won't, Ricky's mum! Don't worry!

There's more than one creepy crawler in here, eh, Gav?

-Hi, Ricky!

-Hey, it's Naomi from Naomi's Nightmares Of Nature.

Can you make something with a massive piece of seaweed kelp stuff?

I could. But it'd be a nightmare.

Oh.

Ricky, can you make art with tissue paper?

Tissue paper? Cool, dude. I pick you.

Yay!

-So, what's your name?

-Vir.

-Nice to meet you, Vir.

-And where are you from?

-I'm from London.

-Cool!

I'm going to make some art with tissue paper that'll blow you away.

Let me just go and grab my things.

So, I've got my tissue paper, some water and I also have a nice,

thick pen, a pencil and a brush.

Because the tissue paper's so colourful, I think I'm going

to do a picture of some nice flowers.

I'm doing a rough pencil line of where I'm going to do

each of the flowers.

All right, so, I've just drawn the rough outline, so with

the tissue paper I'm going to tear off some kind of petally shapes.

Only roughly - they don't need to be perfect.

Just a little red one there. So, Vir, do you do much art at home?

-Yeah.

-What kind of art do you like doing?

I like drawing, sketching outside.

So, what's the best thing you've ever drawn or made?

-I've got it just here. Should I get it?

-Yeah, go on, then!

-Oh, wow! That is amazing! Good work, dude.

-Thank you.

Right, I'm still just tearing all the shapes of leaves and petals out.

OK. I've torn out all my shapes.

I think I'm ready to start making my picture.

So, what I'm going to be doing is dipping the brush into some water,

and I'm going to put the water on top of the tissue paper on the page.

And this is pretty cool,

that as you do it the ink in the tissue paper runs onto the page.

So if you want to have a go at this, you just need to

ask for non-colourfast tissue paper at the craft shop.

Do some nice, long leaves, I think. You can use it a couple of times

when you get a shape that you're happy with to create petals.

-It has a really cool effect.

-Yeah.

You don't have to worry about staying within the lines.

It's more fun if you let it go a little bit all over the place.

Get some really nice mixing here,

where I've placed one piece of tissue paper

and putting another piece over the top of a different

colour and the two are just merging, creating these nice new colours.

I'm just colouring in the pot now that's holding the flowers.

And I'll do a little bit of red for the table on the bottom.

There we are, done all the colour.

But I can either wait for it to dry or I can use some ninja skills.

-What do you think I should do?

-Ninja skills!

There we are, nice and dry. Ready for drawing on now.

I'm just going to go in with a black marker now

and give the flowers some definition.

I'll start right in the middle.

I'm just using my original pencil lines as kind of a guide.

This kind of effect makes it look like the flowers are, like,

exploding with life, and this colour bleeding everywhere.

-OK, Vir, are you ready to see it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Here we go.

-What do you think?

-Whoa!

-What would you score it?

-I'd score it a ten!

-Ah, yes! I'm glad you like it, dude.

I think it's so good it deserves a frame.

Look at that! Amazing. Excellent suggestion, Vir.

-Thanks very much, dude!

-OK!

-Bye-bye!

Hey, you there!

It's me, with some more money-can't- buy-but-you-can-make products!

-Mate, check this out.

-Check out my face.

-It is pretty sweet!

My face is nice,

but not as nice as this guy squashed in a soap dispenser.

Here's how you make it!

Squash your face up against some glass, like a window,

and have a friend take a photo.

Allow me!

You look great.

Print it out and make it roughly the same size as your bottle.

Identical!

Now cut that out.

Cut carefully around your hands and face, removing the background.

Snippy-snippy!

Stick that to the back of your bottle using clear sticky tape.

Tacky!

Like me!

GAVIN GASPS

And there we have it.

Surprise your friends when they come to wash their hands!

The squashed-in-a-bottle soap dispenser!

Not available in the shops.

-Now wash your hands!

-That's great!

I could "clean up" with one of those.

Now, where's Gav got to with Sp...Sp...

Spider? Spider!

-Gavin, what are you doing? Where is he?

-Spider? He's not here.

He's running loose in my flat.

-LAUGHS

-Yes.

He's on my shoulder, isn't he?

Well, he WAS...

-Well, where is he now?

-Somewhere else?

Well, if he's loose in my flat, then I'm out of here.

Spider?

Spider?

Ninja skills! I think I'm safe now. But where am I?

And where is everybody? I'm all alone.

And I know I'm a ninja and I shouldn't admit this, but...

I'm a bit scared right now.

I wish my mates were here.

-Hi, Ricky.

-HE GASPS

Hi, Ricks.

-What are you guys doing here?

-Gav sent us to come and find you.

-He said you'd run away.

-We didn't realise you'd run this far, though.

-Why didn't you shout to stop me?

-We didn't want to scare you!

Well, it's a bit late for that, isn't it?

Well, hey, there's no reason for us to "stick" around any longer.

Er, well, there is, cos if you're going to come out with

jokes like that, you're going to be a danger to yourself and others.

Ha-ha, very funny. You know, while we are here,

though, we could do some art inspired by our surroundings.

You could look out for spiders.

But first, we'd better get our ninja on.

Art Ninja!

-Art Ninja!

-Art Ninja!

We are going to be doing art inspired by all this.

All THIS?

-No, all this!

-But we haven't got any paint or pens or paper or a canvas.

No.

We are going to be "branching" out.

The forest floor is going to be our canvas. "Stick" with me.

OK, we will!

No, pick up a stick and come with me.

OK, guys, as well as sticks we're also going to need some moss,

some nice, thin twigs like this and a bit of thick foliage.

These look good.

Why do I get all the rotten jobs? What should we do with these, Ricky?

We're going to be creating a mysterious woodland sculpture.

So I need you to hold that up to this post so I can drill it in.

OK.

'I'm a grown-up - no, really - so I'm using power tools.

'But you shouldn't without supervision, OK?'

-All right, Sarah, can you hold that that side, please?

-Yep.

There we go, keep them held there.

While you two keep working on this sculpture, I've got

something else I need to do.

'I'm using chicken wire I've borrowed from a friendly farmer.'

I'm going to start putting some of this nice moss in here.

This chicken wire is really good for securing the moss

so it won't fall out of place.

That's looking pretty good.

But you know what? It's missing something.

This'll do nicely.

-How are you getting on, my ninja apprentices?

-All done!

-Have you "twigged" what the art is yet?

-Search me.

-Actually, could I?

Maybe there's something useful in here.

-It's a load of wool.

-Well, I've tied one end to my house

so if we get lost in the woods, we can follow our trail back.

But you haven't tied one end to your house.

-Oops!

-Don't worry, we can still use this to do some art.

-Michelle, take one piece and tie it to that tree over there.

-Cool!

Well done, Sarah. Well done, Michelle.

We've made some brilliant art! And it's all completely natural.

Something smells a bit UN-natural round here, Ricky.

MICHELLE COUGHS Oh, well, it was sweaty work.

Do you know what? Why don't you both just stay here

by the wool? I'll be right back.

What do you think of my "tree-mendous" art?

Er, I can't really see it, myself.

Anyway, we'd better go. Hey, good thing you left that trail of wool

-so we can find our way out of here, eh, Sarah?

-Very funny, Ricky.

# Art Ninja! #

We found our way home.

Gavin safely found the spider, and I contacted

the Danger Rangers and finally got my Arachnid Handler badge!

Check it out! So...

..all's well that ends well.

Today has taught me a valuable Art Ninja lesson.

When faced with a creature whose legs number eight,

grab your mates, wool and twigs to make art that's great.

No more scary spiders, just sweet dreams.

Night!

AAAARRRGGGHHHH!