Black Eagle Deadly Art

My name's Steve Blackshaw. THIS is Deadly Art.

I'm lucky enough to travel the world, tracking deadly animals.

But in this show, my team of artists take my killer moments,

and turn it into art.

We'll reveal another UNIQUE creation.

Along the way, you'll get to pick up some tips , tricks and techniques

so YOU can make some art yourself.

This is no ordinary art show.

THIS is Deadly Art.

'Coming up on Deadly Art,

'I go sky high to get close

'to a deadly winged predator. He's right there!

'Our art team produce an outstanding work of art...'

These guys are going to look REALLY powerful.

And we'll show you another Deadly Doodle.

When it comes to winged hunters,

it takes a lot to beat today's deadly animal.

The Black Eagle.

With a wingspan of up to two metres,

which is longer than giraffe's neck

and longer than I am tall,

this bird is absolutely massive.

Add to that set of huge talons,

which are as sharp as any kitchen knife,

and extraordinary eyesight, able to spot prey from miles away,

this is an incredible predator.

Time to meet today's art team.

As ever, they're ready and waiting in the Deadly Art studio.

I'm Michelle, and I just LOVE working with different materials.

I'm Jo. I'm a painter,

and a general mess maker.

Michelle and Jo are representing the Deadly Art team,

who are always up for a challenge.

And this is the killer moment for their Big Art.

Most birds of prey are solitary for the vast majority of their lives,

but Black Eagles will work together as a team.

One distracts the prey, one creeps up on it from a different direction.

Deadly teamwork.

Beautiful feathers, but deadly talons.

No painting THIS time!

We're going to three dimensional.

Time for some more Deadly Art.

Hey, Michelle!

That looks like great fun!

I fixed these brackets to the desks.

These will act as an anchor for the armature of our birds.

The armature is just a metal wire, to show the outline of the body.

Once this is fixed down, we'll start building it up to make it more 3D.

We'll leave Jo and Michelle making wire frames.

'On Deadly 60, we visited South Africa.

'There was something pretty deadly heading my way.'

Look at this. He's folding his wings. Stooping.

Coming CRASHING into LAND!

WOW!

That was EXTRAORDINARY!

Keep your face away.

Obviously, this isn't a wild eagle.

This is Rourke. He was rescued as a very young chick,

and been living for the last five years in good human company.

He is an utterly magnificent predator.

To see why, you don't have to look further

than those talons. Look at those.

Each one is like a long,

curved kitchen knife of a weapon.

Doug, his owner, has assured me

if I wasn't wearing this thick leather glove,

he could punch that talon through my hand, and out the other side.

They are magnificent.

'The eyes.'

That talons, the beak,

are all very much things that

any eagle has, and can use to hunt.

Something unique about the Black Eagle

is the way that the male and female, the pair,

will hunt together.

'Quite a feat for our Big Art.

'Back to Jo and Michelle.'

We've done our 2D outline,

and then we built it out to 3D,

so, now we're going to fill in the gaps with chicken wire.

As we're bulking these eagles out,

it's important we get the dimensions JUST right.

These guys are going to look REALLY powerful.

Those eagles are bulking up nicely.

Fancy drawing your OWN Black Eagle?

Here's Michelle, with a Deadly Doodle.

I'll show you how to draw and paint one of these Black Eagles.

First of all, with a white wax pencil,

draw a large circle at the top of your page,

for the eagles' head.

Once you have your large circle,

draw an eye in the centre.

Inside that circle, you're going to do another series of circles.

Coming off this eye,

I'm going to a semi-circle shape

at the very bottom of the eye,

where the pupil is,

I'm going to draw a vertical line down,

and, like a pie shape coming out of the head.

This will act as our deadly beak.

Once you've drawn the beak, I've drawn another curvy line,

all the way around, to make sure we get that sharp end.

Then we're going to fill in

a few little details.

I'll put some white feather markings

around the head.

Once you have the head,

the rest is really simple.

Follow the shape of the top of the head all the way along,

and then do a nice, smooth circular line

right down to the bottom of your page.

Once you get to the bottom, about a quarter of the way up,

I'm drawing a squashed C shape,

and then I'm going to draw a line down, and out.

I'm going to draw another large C shape.

As you can see, it really helps define the eagle's body.

That's it with the white crayon. Next, I've got my yellow,

around the outside of the circles you drew for the eyes,

I'm going to colour it all in yellow.

What I'm doing as I'm colouring in,

is just leaving a few bits.

You'll see why later on.

Next, I'm going to colour in my beak in yellow.

Once that's all coloured in,

all that's left is to get your black ink,

and simply wash all over the page.

Painting the doodle REALLY brings it to life.

As you wash over, the wax crayon will resist the ink,

which means all those white lines,

and all the yellow, will pop out.

It's a really cool effect.

Be very careful with black ink.

And get permission before you use it.

There you have it. An AMAZING Black Eagle.

Good work, Michelle.

Now, we went to Port Talbot, in Wales, on a deadly day out.

Here's how some of YOU did, in the Deadly Art tent.

ALL: This is my Deadly Doodle!

I liked drawing the eye, cos there's so many circle.

And drawing the wings, as well.

I liked drawing the belly.

It looks like he's rumbling.

I liked drawing the beak, cos he bites the animals.

I liked drawing the head,

cos he's very funky, and he's fat.

I love eagles,

and I really enjoyed drawing this.

After I finished drawing it,

I thought it looked absolutely deadly.

-ALL: Deadly Art!

-Great Black Eagles!

See how easy it is to draw your favourite deadly animal?

Let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.

Michelle's onto the wings.

The Black Eagle has an AMAZING two metre wingspan.

If THIS is just one of the wings, with two, our eagle will be huge.

The Black Eagle has amazing black feathers,

so we want to give our sculpture a unique texture.

I've cut black bin bags into strips,

and this is the good bit.

I'm going to lay them over the wire mesh,

and melt them to create a feather effect.

Melting black bin bags is something only a professional artist can do.

You mustn't attempt ANYTHING you see in the Big Art.

In South Africa, being close to Black Eagle, Rourke,

was incredible.

'Time to see him TRULY in action.'

There he is, right there!

Just flying under my feet!

We're sharing the air!

With Rourke, the Black Eagle.

How good is THAT?!

He just soared right under our canopy!

That was UNBELIEVABLE!

Just incredible!

OK, now the real trick

to this paragliding lark

is very much the same thing

the eagle will be looking for, and that's thermals.

A thermal is a rising current of warm air,

which would especially come up off a dark, ploughed field,

a big area of road.

Just that warm air is enough to get you heading for the heavens.

That's the weapon the Black Eagle uses to get high.

'We're sharing the skies with a true master.

'And Rourke is giving us a proper flying lesson.

'Such a beautiful bird!'

After all that excitement,

it's time for a DIY.

I'm going to show you how to make this amazing Black Eagle.

I've cut out the head, and down into this point.

I'll put that to one side.

The most interesting thing about THIS DIY,

is the amazing wingspan.

I create that by making a single feather out of a lino cut.

This stuff's really nice, soft, and easy to cut into.

You can get it in any art shop.

We start off by drawing the feather on.

I'm going to go from corner to corner with a line.

And up, with those feathery marks,

and down with the side.

It's going to be feathering all the way up.

Now, I'm taking a lino-cutting tool,

and cut along all those black lines.

Make sure you try that technique with an adult to help you.

So I'm cutting out all those feathery lines

and all the bits that are left over will be printed onto the page.

It does take some time but it's worth it in the end.

I think that's enough cutting.

Now I'm just going to cut around those edges using scissors.

Take care when you use scissors.

Just cutting around the stalk, that will give me

something to hold onto when I start printing.

So I'm just going to nick into the edge to create that feathery texture.

Great. Now I'm ready to start printing.

I've got some grey card and some water-based ink. Pop that on there.

Just roller it out, spreading it all over my tile evenly and thinly.

We're going to take our feather and put a nice even coat of ink over it.

I'll pick it up by its stalk and lay it out on my card.

I've got a clean roller just to give it a bit of pressure on the back

and make sure I get a nice clean print.

Wow, look at that. Printing's just like magic.

So I'm building feather upon feather to make a section of the wing.

Now I'm just going to cut it out.

Doesn't that look beautiful? So this is just one section of the wing.

I've done the same again for a middle section so I'm just going to

stick it all together with double-sided sticky tape.

So there we've got the left wing.

Here's the right wing

and the doodle from earlier, so we can piece it all together.

And not forgetting the deadly claws which are just drawn onto yellow

pieces of paper and now we have an amazing pair of hunting black eagles.

Nice DIY, Jo. Back to our big art.

I love that they're using yellow plastic bags too.

Well, the black eagles look just about finished to me.

I love the technique of melting the plastic onto the wire

because of the amazing scraggy feathered effect.

I love that they're larger than life and because we've got two

it looks like they're hunting right here in the art studio.

So it's nearly time for the Big Reveal.

I asked the Deadly Art team to recreate these killer shots

and turn them into art, so let's take a look at the finished result.

Oh, these two eagles just dominate the Deadly Art studio.

Imagine having those plummeting out of the sky towards you.

The wings are spread, the talons poised to pounce

and the flight feathers are perfectly represented

by those melted bin bags.

I couldn't imagine how that would work but it really has.

Great work, team.

What an incredible creation.

Make sure you try the doodle and the DIY

and we'll see you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd