Eye Got Optical Ninja Skills Nine Minute Ninja

Time to get my Ninja on.

And my clothes.

-Yo, Ricky.

-Who are you?

I'm the famous artist Maurits Cornelius Escher,

but you can call me MC.

When it comes to rapping, I have the key.

It's not just rapping, dancing and bopping.

I also like to make art that's interlocking.

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

Tessellation is an interlocking pattern.

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 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 these shapes perfectly fit together.

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

When that happens you start to create the shape of the ghost.

His head is here, here is his other arm coming out.

Then, this one here is going to come down to the bottom.

But then we're going to flip it.

This means that our first set of ghosts are going to be facing

one way and, in 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.

We start drawing around the shape.

Thankfully, there is a nice big line running down the side

of our ghost. We can use it as a guide

to line him up with the paper.

Just for the first one.

Whoa!

Perfectly interlocked, that's a good sign.

You'll notice here that it also interlocks here, too.

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

You can see here it doesn't fit in, and that's

because we turned the bottom round, that's just so we can make

a more interesting picture here. So, look, we can have these ghosts

facing that way, and those ones facing that way.

You don't have to do 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 miss this one out here,

and jump onto the one afterwards and do the same.

I'm also adding facial expressions to them.

I'll draw the faces in of the other ghosts.

I'm not going to fill in the mouth on this one,

because 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, put some paper down.

This black and white effect, this kind of chequerboarding,

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

onto 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.

That tessellated wallpaper made my eyes go funny.

Hey, you there.

Argh! This guy is such a chancer!

The future is so bright I have to wear shades.

-"Why?" I heard you ask.

-I didn't say anything.

Ever been in class but can't keep your eyes open?

Ever made a spectacle of yourself.

Now, you can disguise your eyes with brand-new go to sleep shades.

Here's how you make them.

You need some black card and a white pencil.

Use it to draw around the front of your glasses onto the card.

Turn your glasses so you can draw around the arms.

Now, draw some lenses inside the frames you've already drawn.

Next, get some scissors. Snippy, snippy.

And, with care, cut out the glasses from the card.

Please get rid of your excess card - ahem! - responsibly.

You need a small piece of modelling clay

and your pencil to safely poke holes in the lenses.

Use these holes to help you cut out the lenses with your scissors.

It's not over yet.

You'll need to make another pair in much the same way as demonstrated.

Aye, aye!

Now, using a camera or smartphone, take a couple of selfies.

One with your eyes open and one with your eyes closed.

A very good likeness.

Next, send these pictures to print.

Wait.

Who's this guy? I don't remember taking those. Oh, well, they'll do.

Now using a pencil draw around the eyes of your printed selfies

using the outline of your cardboard glasses like this.

Cut out both sets of eyes.

Those eyes really suit me, don't they?

With a glue stick, attach the open eyes to one pair of glasses...

..and attach the closed eyes to the other pair.

You must stick both frames together back-to-back,

with both sets of eyes facing outwards.

Classy.

Finally, make a fold in the arms of your glasses

so that you can wear them.

Go to sleep shades...

buy them now because I can see these flying off the shelves.

Well, I could, if I had my eyes...

..open!

Those eyes are massive. But let's keep things in proportion.

So, I'm going to show you how to proportion a cartoon body.

So, start by drawing four lines equal distance apart.

These are going to be guides.

Just done them in pencil.

Grab a pen. In the top one I'm going to draw the head.

Cartoon characters have big heads.

This means you can draw the body

and the leg section the same size as the head.

So, in total, your character will be three heads high.

Just draw some glasses on him.

In the second area, I'm going to draw the body.

I'm going to make sure the arms are roughly the same length as the body.

Now, the legs.

And then I'm going to draw the knees,

halfway between the feet and the hips.

In a few simple steps, my cartoon character is in proportion.

There's a quick art tip.

Why don't you add this to your body of work?

Now go to the website and get your Ninja on.

Art Ninja!