Monday 31 August 2015

Favorite 

Artist...

craig platt nz bird and wildlife artist




'Chee' 'Chee' 'Chee'

Hay!! Everybody! 
Tyler here for another blog post and this weeks bird call is from the 
Silvereye, or waxeye or white-eye... well whatever you want to call it. Yeah well I like to call it a Silvereye. Anyway most of you will be quite familiar with these small noisy birds because they mostly live in parks and gardens. 

All righty lets get into this weeks actual topic... 
Which is to choose our favorite artist, and that person is...






craig platt nz native bird artist, tui, saddlebacks, woodpigeons

Craig Platt



Craig Platt had a strong passion for New Zealand's wildlife. From a 
young age he rescued birds, including sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes 
and many other species that had ether fallen from their nests or were 
hurt and injured....


Yeah, Yeah I know I can just about see you *face palming* in front of 
your computer screens saying
"Tyler, sooooo predictable" ...but just hear me out on this one...
He is really good! some of his art is already featured in some of my
earlier posts. Even this one, for instance, how do you like the very first
pic... the one just under the heading? that has to be one of my favorite
pieces of his. and also how do you like the one just above the heading
saying Craig Platt?





craig platt nz bird artist
Frenzy 

The park bench to Craig Platt is a symbol of  trust, craftsmanship and a icon of time and history. The story behind the bench is the first kiss of  Bill and Audrey some 50 or so years back. The bin is a symbol of change, signs of disrespect, with the occurring littering,
graffiti and vandalism.

The white and gray of the gulls are representing the colors of iPhone, smart phones, ipads ipods and other devices, as an image of the modern technology is slowly taking away the craftsmanship the artist's process.       


craig platt nz bird and wildlife artist

Tui Elite 

The meaning of this painting was to go further into the personality of the Tui. trying to make connections of it's almost human characteristics. By putting detail in the eye and making the neck vail presented as if he was ready to welcome of importance. Who knows maybe he is a Rangatira. (A Maori chief or noble)

If anyone is interested in any more of his art... I have put a link bellow...

http://www.artbythesea.co.nz/craigplatt.htm


So yeah CRaig Platt is the artist I have chosen for this weeks blog... 

Okay, well thanks guys for reading this weeks post 
that's all for me please comment below.



Goodbye











Sunday 23 August 2015

Sports 

Fest  (Updated)  

                                                  Hello!! It's Ty-Ty here! Yay           and this weeks greeting call comes from the North Island Kokako (Top left) In the picture. (Bottom middle) is the extinct South Island Kokako. Their songs were very similar. During the dawn chorus their song consist of organ-like sounds. It is beautiful, complex and people describe it haunting the forest.                                                                                                                                    Anyway lets get to the main point...                                                           
...as most of you know, the sport fest is coming up Wednesday to be exact) I'm playing for the mixed team in dodgeball. To be honest... I've only read like half of the rules and they are pretty bizarre and confusing... yip that could be a bit of an issue. 
-Ten people in a team... (right) But only six people on a court at once! 
Well what are the remaining people gonna do then?
turns out that they get to do the fun gob of going out and retrieving 
all the balls outside the court for the team... (I know, I know what a 
terrible excuse but I didn't make up the rules now did I...?)  

Just wait until you get a load of these rules!

-Four ball maximum on each side? 

-If a ball bounces off another ball and hits you, then that's an out!!!



-and going back to the first rule... six people on a court at once! 
How many games are we going to play!?! cause that's sort of unfair
cause depending on how many games we play some people might 
have to go off the court and miss a whole game twice! or ether only 
play one game and have for people missing the game... the math 
just doesn't add up to make it fair. Anyway I hope my team and I 
will have fun and enjoy the whole sports fest overall. 

To make things even we need to come up with a 
descant plan so everyone is happy can can enjoy the day playing 
dodgeball! 


Okay well that's all for well... today I guess I know it's very short and 
snappy but I have only done half a blog post... come back on 
Wednesday afternoon or if not Thursday, to see the whole post!

and yeah yeah don't worry I'll be back to post the bird info thing at 
the end of my blog once again... (everyone's favorite) 




                                                                                                                                                                   




Okay so i'm now typing from after the sports feast, and I gotta say... that was pretty fun! (Yeah I know we play every Friday afternoon but It was nice to have a bit of a change and play by some different rules, and vs some different people) Oh yeah speaking about those new rules.... to be honest... they weren't as bad as I thought it would have been (I may have over exaggerated a bit in the first half of the blog post) 
Now a question for you all reading this post... how did you like the sport feast? 
Make sure to let me know in the comments below! 

Okay now that we have that out of the way... oh yeah dodgeball!                                                                                                                                   Like most tournaments the first few games were fairly easy (no offence of the other teams)         When it was our time to shine! A.K.A start playing dodgeball... it actually surprised me each game was about 12-14 minutes (I think) and then within that time frame we have to play as many games as possibly... every time a team get all the other teams players out... then that's a point to them and then a new game starts.                                                                                                           So that continues until the countdown starts and the time has Finnish. 

The first round we won (as in played the most games) 
(please tell me if i'm getting this wrong dodgeball peps) 
anyway the first round we WON! but only lost one game


the second round we WON! all of the games I think,
the third round we WON! ...and I cant remember how 
many games we won and lost in that one...


The third one on the other hand, went terribly... we 
LOST? By a mile, the score in the end 
was like 1-5 to the other team (mind them they have 
some people who throw really really hard!!!
and the last game (BY FAR THE HARDEST!!!)
We won... sort of...  we actually drew in the end. 

overall we came third... not too bad if I don't say so myself! 
(and we do, do training like every Friday, lol) 
to put that in perspective we won a 2 basketball and 2
other balls for the school, (I think) Oh and a coupe of 
drink bottles.


...and now for story time with Ty-Ty (don't get too exited the story time is just for this weeks post...)

                                                                             It was a nice day to play dodgeball...                   it was the first game of the whole tournament and it was us vs Raroa,                                           Okay lets cut to the chase here, we were getting thrashed. balls were flying everywhere rocketing pasted, as we desperately tried to dodge, you could hear the loud thumping noise as it smashed against the ground... only centimeters away from us. one by one we retreated to the referee, we were all out. Except for one person...                       
Catherine M. She was the last person standing, our last team mate, our 
last glimmer of victory lies in Catherine, (No presser) The Raroa's coach 
started to chuckle, I called down from the side line, "come on 
Catherine you can do this!" but deep down I knew that this wouldn't last 
long...  I closed my eyes as she placed one foot down ready to through,
with an almighty arm swing... the ball flew through the air, only just landing  
at the edge of the opponents foot. I looked up. the roar coming from our 
team was deafening, clapping and cheering echoed through the building, 
now all eyes from the grand stand was fixed on Catherine. 

Now Raroa was getting angry, they all through each and one of their balls 
at Catherine on a count of three. She dodged! another small cheer from the 
side line 
"You can do this!" someone called. She collected as much balls as she 
could, and rolled them to the other team.... confusion and muttering came 
from our team. 
"What is she doing?" 
Roroa ran towards the balls bending over to pick them up. They took the bait. 
Catherine took another daring though and landed right on the persons back! 
another cheer, again and again she rolled the ball towards the other team 
and then through another ball on top of them. Her trap was working like a 
charm...  Raroa never seemed to learn. until there was one person left.

An endless battle between Catherine and the Raroa person went on for ages, 
throwing and missing throwing and missing. A ball rolled on to the opponents 
side of the court, Roroa screamed! 
"Don't pick it up, don't pick it up!" The world seemed like it was in slow motion... 
he bent down, Raroa jumped up and down, we were jumping up and down, 
the game on the other court looked like it was paused, cause they were all looking 
at Catherine. Foleshly he bent down, Catherine threw the ball, The other person 
quickly saw and stood up, trying to dodge, but it hit him clean! 
Roaring and cheering was heard all through the building. 

Catherine had just one the game for us. Who would have thought! I can't wait 
to see her on the Friday game!



  

Goodbye

                                                                                                                                                                                         














Thursday 20 August 2015

Flag 

Change...


'Cheet'   'Cheet'
The Simpsons Nerd animated GIF
Hey!! everybody!
Tyler here for another blog post and by the 
way... That was the cheerful greeting sound of 
the Fantail, Their call mainly consist of high-pitched, repeated 'Cheets' 
which varies in different parts of the song.

'Kuu'   'Kuu' 

That was the soft 'kuu' of the New Zealand 
wood pigeon 
or kereru. 

'Tsit-Tsit'  'Tsit-Tsit'

The call of the rifleman or tiipounamu is a 
rapid 'Tsit-Tsit' Often heard between pairs as 
they feed together. 

The Rifleman is the smallest bird in New Zealand and is a member in the wren family. Their name comes from the color of the 19th century New Zealand rifleman military. 
The Rifleman is almost tail-less and possesses short, rounded wings. For its small size it has relitivly large feet. Meaning 
that it is flightless or nearly flightless as it feed quickly among the trees.....



Yeah yeah alright... no more nonsense 



Okay so lets get to the pint. One of the current events 
happening in New Zealand right now is the whole deal 
of changing the flag design. They have rounded all the 
possible designs of over 10 000 flags into a top 40. From 
there the public has to narrow it down to 4 and then the 
winning design!  

So for this weeks blog post we have to choose our own top 
4 flags and then our favorite out of those 4 flags. 
So DRUM ROLL PLEASE!.....  





This design refers to the 'long white cloud' and has the
Southern cross in the blue sky. The color palette is quite simple
and symbolizes the deep connection between the land and the sea.  






This design represents peace and tranquillity, and uses the same colors
as the union jack (Which is about as close as you can get to to the union jack)
   The design holds a wave and the southern cross. 





Unity Fern (Red & Blue) by Paul Jackways from Canterbury, tagged with: Blue, Red, White, Fern.
This design I also quite like, it has a silver fern (another kiwi icon)
and hasThe same color palette as the union jack. The white is supposed to
represent the 'long white cloud'

                 Now the moment you've all been waiting for... My all time favorite is...



Manawa (Black & Green) by Otis Frizzell from Auckland, tagged with: Black, Green, White, Koru, Southern Cross, Kiwiana, Nature, Landscape, Māori culture.
This one!!! Firstly what I like about  this one is the fact that It's quite simple but punchy, 

The black represents the night sky with the 

southern cross placed in it. The white is the 'long white cloud'
and the green is the land with a Maori koru ting it all together. 

It's so beautiful!







To be honest other people don't seem to enthusiastic about 
changing our flag, but I think it's a good idea... anyway 
here are some pros and cons about the whole changing the 
flag business...


Firstly... People have grown up with this flag, born with the flag looking exactly how it is now, and dying exactly how it was their whole life. People now know it has been the same generations upon generations, and have grown up with it their whole life looking exactly the same. I feel like some people will find it quite hard to move on. For us (young people) it will be maybe a bit easier to move on from, because were still quite experienced with changes and learning new stuff so moving on can be easy. But older people might not and (because they have the right to vote) they have a dead advantage over us... 

We all know world war 1 and 2, right? well the flag has 
been exactly the same the whole time and hasn't done 
any harm to us right? Well just imagine what it would feel 
like if we changed it... we would be doing great shame 
upon our relatives who gave up their lives under that flag.
and It's not only that... sorting events and Olympics 
have been playing underneath the New Zealand for
for a long time... Besides we'll all different, that flag could 
have some sort of personal value to some people.
Causing them not to vote on a new one. 





Well I think it's really cool that New Zealand is finally showing its true identity through changing the flag. 
The first reason is well obviously Australia's flag looks exactly like ours. The southern cross in their flag actually serves a purpose. The largest star in their flag has seven points which represents the seven states of Australia. Our flag only represents the Crown and not Maori, In fact any kiwiana of any sort. 

The southern cross (you may think as kiwiana) but to be honest, the southern cross was rejected as a symbol of the current flag. Because it wasn't related to New Zealand, but   then after failed attempts of coming up with a new idea they had no choice but to stick it on there for no good reason. (I mean come on, it shouldn't be that hard... just look at all the ideas they came up with in the present day) 


Going back to the looking the same as Australia bit people 

outside the UK actually struggle to find the difference 
between the flags, (really?) If you think about it our flag sort 
of advertisement for Australia! Also the flag dose dwell a bit 
in the past.... (just saying) I mean come on we have sort of 
moved on from having the union jack in our flag, that's just 
a thing in the past from when England took over us and 
other countries. Becides, they have all changed flag by now 
except Australia and us. 
(don't you think it's time for a change...)


Yeah well that's just my opinion anyway... don't be offended 

by mine or anyone else's (have an open mind...)
Oh before I go! You probably know about other people 
having book reviews and stuff at the end of their blogs... 
well you can probably guess what i'm going to do... 




This weeks bird is... Bellbird!


Bellbirds are green and with a short, curved bill, and a slight forked tail. Males tend to be Olive green and slightly paler on the belly and other underparts, the head is tinged purple and the wings and tail are blackish. 

Females on the other hand are browner with a narrow white-yellow stripe running from the cheek to the bill. 


Bellbirds are endemic (meaning that they are native to a certain place) They live in Native, exotic forests, parks and gardens. Where they can harvest some of their favorite foods: nectar, fruit and insects. 


A wide variety of loud, clear notes can be produced by these birds. Clicks can sometimes be heard and also sounds of a bell-like quality.




Okay, well thanks guys for reading this weeks post 
that's all for me please comment below. 
(feel free to tell me in the comments what you think 
about this new bird thing...)








Goodbye









Monday 10 August 2015

Arty Farty Time


Art

craig platt nz bird and wildlife artist

                                                                                                       Hey guys! So hows your day been... Achieved any tasks yet? Well I've been typing this post from Tuesday and I cant say that I've done any tasks... usually I would have completed half of them by now (so I can have the rest of the week off) But I cant see that happening right now... (Yes I can totally look into the future)   

Usually I do draw at home (as you may have suspected... Obviously) and I do a lot of different types and styles of art, and use a variety of media to do so... like abstract, 

paintings and drawings (and I don't know what this style comes 
under so I'll just through it out there) ...birds. 

Yeah, yeah most of you guys know me by my love of birds, to be more specific, New Zealand birds and my style of art based from my bird passion... Other styles include... Paintings,prints, drawing photography, craft, design, visual arts (such as productions we have here at school) Mixed media, sculpture, Installation and new media (which is art based on technology) 




These are some of the 
art works 

I've done this year, the 
zooplankton was part 
of the Galapagos Island 
topic or evolution topic 
(what surprised me during 
this art is that I am 
surprisingly 
good at shading 
which I didn't 
really know that I 
had it in me) 

and the perspective 

one was last term I think, 
and it was for our maths/ 
geometry topic.  

and we all know what

the mask one was for... 
Aztec! all the classes A.K.A 
room 8, 11, and 12 did this 
art piece for our Aztec topic 
this term.




I love Danny Haas's designs, they're retro and fun. I ordered Night Launch as an iPhone 4 cover.spaceship launch (The Destination by Danny Haas)  |  Nissan lead designer Ken Lee shared with me that the spaceship aesthetic was a big inspiration to him in the design for the #newmurano #nissannyias #sponsored
For school we are currently working on some art projects for our school art week. (as you all know) my class (room 12) is doing a theme of space and man made stuff that's up there too, as well as planets and other natural things. 

But I would like to do some cool stuff on spaceships and rockets. (especially when they are taking off so we can do cool designs on smoke and exhaust (is that what you call rocket smoke...) any way I think it's a cool idea.  
 

  





Goodbye




     
                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                               












Monday 3 August 2015

Dinner with...


Heyo! Its Tyler here once again and oh hey, in the comments section bellow please tell me who you guys would like to invite to dinner? ...Well obviously I'll be reading most of your posts, but just in case I don't get round to yours, it doesn't always hurt to just drop it in the comments!

Anyway... the first person I'll like to invite to my dinner is...   

Lol Laughing animated GIF

Yip that's right the minions. 
Oh come on who doesn't like the minions? Yes they are impulsive creatures with little self-control but who doesn't like them, seriously! They're hilarious! 
The are pesky and cunning, and have weird, funny interactions with people, animals and objects.  

They are just there to have a good time and laugh. (They truly are strange henchmen working with a bizarre criminal mastermind)

One might say they have much in common but they do have some features that distinguish themselves apart, such as height, roundness, number of eyes, and hair. Some of the main minions are Carl, Kevin, Phil, Jerry, Stuart, Tom, Dave and Tim. But the one minion I'll pick for the dinner is Stuart 

But the one minion I'll pick for the dinner is Stuart because he loves to laugh, play and have fun (He'll be the life of the party)  

Minion Questions:  
These are the questions I'd like to ask them... 

- What makes you fashion blue overalls?

-Do you ever get sick of eating bananas?

-And is your funny and quirky personally in the movies only acting or is it your usual selves?









The second person I'll invite to dinner is...




Yes and there's a reason...

Actor B. D. Wong from Jurassic park and Jurassic world. He may seem not so much of a major character in the movie but in the book he was surprisingly a major character.

Yes the reason why I invited him over is to talk about his movie job of cloning dinosaurs! So basically his job is to collect the DNA from the team and start processing it, filling in missing part of the genome (DNA) with those of existing animals. 
Which is why Indominus rex is a hybrid of  T. rex and Velociraptor. But Indominus rex has DNA from all sorts of animals such as cuttle fish, frogs, and  snakes, 

Dr Henry Wu Questions:                                                             These are some questions for him
-Do you actually like dinosaurs outside the movie? 
-Would you have liked to have played another role for the movie?
-What is your favorite dinosaur that you've created?


 Image result for goodbye quotesBye thanks for reading!!! :)












Goodbye