Gannet Deadly Art

My name is Steve Backshall and 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 moment...

..and turn it into art.

And we'll reveal another unique creation.

Along the way, you will 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'm in Wales on the trail of one of

the UK's deadliest birds.

Gannets are nature's equivalent for a harpoon.

The Deadly Art team fold a lot of metal

to create today's killer moment.

And get your pencil ready for today's Deadly Doodle.

Today, we're looking at gannets.

Gannets are seabirds, but not just any seabirds,

these are truly massive and spectacular predators.

The gannet's hunting strategy is risky, but undoubtedly deadly.

They'll soar up to perhaps 30 metres above the water,

the height of a ten story building,

then fold their wings into their side and hit

the water like a torpedo, spearing the fish as they do.

Let's hope our artists are ready for this diving supremo.

Let's meet them.

I'm Michelle and I just love working with different materials.

I'm all about getting stuck in.

Hey, I'm Mike. I'm a cartoon artist and I'm up for today's deadly art.

Mike and Michelle are representing the Deadly Art team,

who are always up for a challenge.

And here is today's killer moment to inspire their art.

They're built to fly and to dive.

They can fold their wings into their side.

They even have built-in airbags. This is going to be interesting.

Our Big Art needs to be representational.

It needs to cover power, speed and strength.

Again, it needs a point of direction.

With streamlined shapes, we can have them diving after their prey.

In fact, we're going to do origami on a massive scale.

Time for some more deadly art.

Cutting these sheets of aluminium foil into shape.

It's a bit thicker than the stuff you get in your kitchen, but it folds

and cuts just like paper, so it's perfect

for our giant origami gannets.

-Oh, great, this will keep me busy.

-Enjoy.

-Thanks.

I love how the Deadly Art team always try new

and inventive ways of showing off the killer moment.

Let's see how different this one will be.

It'll involve lots of folding

and I expect it will be a bit abstract, too.

While Mike and Michelle get on with their gannets,

to find ours on Deadly 60,

we needed to go far out to sea on the Pembrokeshire coast.

So, we jumped in some kayaks and braved the stormy seas.

Gannets are nature's equivalent of a harpoon.

They hit the water at speeds of over 60 miles per hour.

Gannets have air sacks around their heads and chest

that act like built-in airbags, cushioning the impact.

What does it feel like to hit the water from that kind of height

and at that kind of speed?

Well, I've come to this oil rig to find out.

We are about 20 metres above the water,

which is kind of average for a gannet to dive.

It does look kind of high though.

If I don't get it just right, it's going to really hurt.

Oh, dear.

My head!

I hit the water pretty good,

but it feels like my brain is rattling around inside my skull!

The gannet does that over, over and over again.

Honestly, it's an incredible achievement.

I think the gannet makes an Olympic high diving champion

look like a total sissy.

Let's head back to the Deadly Art studio now

and more impressive origami.

We've got a bit of a production line going on here.

I'm making the head and body of the gannet,

and here is how I make one.

I start by folding my triangle into thirds.

Then, I flip it over and fold in half. Here comes the origami bit.

You fold in half diagonally.

When you open it back up, you get a V shape inside

and I'm going to use that to pinch and fold its head into position.

-There you go. One half of the body.

-I am making the gannet's wings.

And now I'm going to attach them to the body.

The foil is so thin it staples just like paper.

Check those wings out.

It's cool how the sections fit together to make our arty gannet.

Now you can get involved.

Michelle is taking a break from the folding to show you a Deadly Doodle.

I am going to show you how to draw a Deadly Doodle of a gannet

diving into the water to catch its prey.

So, you are going to start by drawing a small oval

at the bottom of your page.

And then, above that, a larger oval.

Once you've drawn that, you're going to draw a quashed square

on one side of the oval and off that, a narrow triangle.

Then, in the centre of the oval, which is going to be the gannet's

body, we're drawing an hour shape.

And it's just going to curve around like that.

And then, we've got a diamond just a small distance away from the oval.

Onto the gannet's eye.

In the first oval that you drew, you're just going to draw

a small eye and, coming off the end of the oval, a beak.

Now you're going to start joining all the shapes together.

So, attach the small oval to the large oval.

This is just with a curved line. And again, on the other side.

Attach the small oval to the large oval.

I'm just going to draw in the diamond to the large oval

with two curved lines.

And now we have our tail feathers joined to the body.

Now, of course, we want our gannet to be diving into the water

to catch a fish, so I need to draw a water surface.

I'm just doing that by a wavy line across the gannet.

Now you can see that half of his body is in the water, half is above.

Once you got all your shapes fixed together,

grab your black marker pen and just fill in the details.

I'm following my marks all the way around the body.

Now, your marker pen is great

because it makes it all look far more fluid.

So, I'm just going over the wing with my marker pen.

And now, I'm filling in the details.

I've got the black wing here.

I'm just drawing lines across my wing,

these are going to be the feathers.

Now, all the feathers are facing down

as it's diving into the water.

And now onto the underside of the gannet.

Again, I'm following my black marker pen around just joining all

the lines together.

And up along to the tail feathers.

And as I did with the other wing,

I'm just trying black lines all the way down.

And it just really helps to make it look streamlined.

Now I'm just going over the beak. Ready to catch some food.

Now, for the eye. As the eye is quite small,

I am going to use a thinner tip just to make it nice and defined.

I'm just colouring around it in black.

So, with my thicker tip, I'm going to shade in the middle wing.

I'm doing nice, long, vertical strokes. These are great

because they really highlight the direction that the gannet

is going in. And now to fill in the water surface.

I'm going over those wavy lines just to make them a lot more fluid.

And to give the impression that the gannet has just splashed in,

with your thinner marker pen,

you can just do a load of squiggly lines coming off

and it really gives the effect that the gannet

has made a great, big splash.

And finally, I am going to draw in the doomed fish.

And there you have your deadly diving gannet.

Great gannet, Michelle.

So, how did some of you get on drawing this doodle?

We went to Devon on our Deadly Day Out

and here is all the action from the Deadly Art tent.

ALL: Deadly Art!

-I'm Dutch.

-And I'm Ian.

-BOTH: And this is a Deadly Doodle.

I'm proud about my doodle because I like the way

that it's got a fish.

And it's deadly because it's already caught one.

It's good and it's simple.

ALL: This is our Deadly Art.

My favourite bit is the beak because it can catch fish.

They look brilliant! Keep on doodling.

Let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.

Inside the metal basket that Mike is spraying,

we're going to have organic prey.

So we've just cut up a load of fish and then,

using this embossing tool,

I'm just creating those lovely scaly patterns.

And when I press hard, the patterns pop out on the front and the back.

And it also gives the fish a lovely natural curl.

We painted our fish all different colours and I am going to spray mine bronze.

Love the shapes Michelle is making on those shiny fish.

Definitely abstract.

But I love how different this Big Art is going to be.

And now Mike is going to show you how to make your very own

diving gannet.

Oh, yes! Straight on target.

I am going to show you how to make this flying and diving gannet.

You need to start with a foam tube. You can get this from any DIY store.

I've taken my foam tube and I've covered it in white craft foam.

You can get that from any craft store.

I've wrapped it all the way around the side

and I've also covered one of the ends. You can see,

I've also marked out where the wings are going to go.

That's all these lots. One on the side,

one on that side to slide the wings through,

and also this cross-section at the back.

I've got the cross here and these wrap up the side

so that our tail feathers fit inside each of these grooves.

I'm going to use a scalpel to cut out all of these lines.

You must get an adult to help you because scalpels are very dangerous.

I am going to cut all the way along.

We cut it deep enough to go through your craft foam

and through your foam tube.

This bit can be fiddly, so get an adult to help you.

When you've done that, you should be able to pop out your little slot.

And on the tail, cutting out the cross-section.

Definitely minding my fingers. Pop the last bit out.

Now, that's the body done. Time for the wings.

I've done out the shape onto a piece of foam.

It looks like giant vampire teeth.

Now, I'm going to cut that out with some scissors.

This foam is a bit thicker than the other foam

because we want these wings to be really strong and pliable.

OK? That's the wings cut out.

And it's just like the wings on our gannet here.

I am going to slot these into the body.

So, right through that slot that I cut earlier.

I am going to slide these wings right through the slot.

His wings are in the middle, in place.

As you can see, on this gannet here,

gannets also have black feathers at the ends of their wings.

So, for that, I've got two pieces of foam

and I've also used a white crayon to draw on some of the feathers.

So we'll just stick those to the end with some double-sided tape.

Now it's coming together. Now it's time for the tail feathers.

So, for that, with the same kind of foam, this time I've got two squares.

And I've also drawn onto slots, as you can see, one on each,

so they fit together just like that.

Now, I've cut out those two slots, our pieces of our tail fit together.

Look at that!

Now this fits into the cross-section at the end of our gannet.

I've secured the tail feathers in place and they look just like a dart.

That way our gannet will fly nice and straight.

OK, now it's time for the head. I want my gannet to dive,

so I need to add a weight into the end of his head,

so that when it flies, it always wants to dive.

For that, I'm going to add a weight, which is this old eraser,

into the head. It fits in snugly.

To make sure it doesn't come out,

I'm going to add a little foam square.

And tape that down to the end. Down to the head.

And cut around it.

OK, now we've got a cap.

So, we've got everything done except for the head now.

For that, I've got to shield shapes. These are going to be for the beak.

We'll add those on with some tape.

One to the top and then the bottom one goes on.

Stick that down and wrap it around.

I have to cover up the rest of the foam tube.

For that, I've got two more foam shapes.

I've got one which is a little leaf shape.

This is for the scruff of the neck. So, we'll stick that underneath.

And the last thing you need to add on are the distinctive yellow feathers

on the crown of her head. So, for that,

I've got this mask shape made out of the same kind of foam.

We'll just secure that down with double-sided tape.

So, the last thing I can do is draw in the eyes. All right,

it looks just like a gannet. Now to give it a try.

Ah!

Thanks, Mike. Back to the Big Art.

I think we've really captured what the gannets are all about.

It's the way they dive-bomb into the water to catch the fish.

Definitely. Look at all the movement and direction.

We've got streamlined gannets shaped like a V,

connected to rods shaped like a V, all focusing down on their prey.

Nice one!

So, it's nearly time for the Big Reveal.

I asked the Deadly Art team to re-create

this killer moment and turn it into art.

So, let's take a look at the finished result.

Oh, this really sums up the speed

and the elegance of the diving gannet!

These animals thunder into the water like torpedoes

and these incredible origami shapes do exactly the same.

When mixed with actual footage of the gannets,

this art work becomes a real installation.

It's an actual feeding frenzy!

Nice work, team. Art doesn't get any deadlier than this.

That was a truly sublime work of art.

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