Derpy Birbs🐦

gm my art is meant to be alive👁️

"digital art - a gateway to understanding and engaging with the digital world in profound and meaningful ways"

gm On Love - part II Second installation of a long, introspective and hopefully thought provoking life story, so grab a cup of your favourite brew or bookmark for later [there is also audio version attached] When was the last time you fell in love? I don’t mean with a human, but with an idea; with the concept; with the process. You know, that experience which profoundly changes who you are forever. It makes your head hazy and all you want to do is to return to that state again and again. Horizons which you did, could not imagine, open up to you and you see the future possibilities. When you’re away from it there is a pang in your gut, a yearning in your heart, and thinking of it makes your thoughts race like starships blasting across planetary rings. That special time when you encountered a new medium, a novel idea, a new concept - you were inexplicably drawn to it. There was something which attracted you more than your logic processes could account for. And then you dived in. Headfirst, without heed. The time disappeared, a new dimension opened up and embraced you like a long lost lover it never knew. And you knew your life would never be the same again. We’ve all, hopefully, had multiple experiences like that. Artists will know the depth of this emotional wave, the tectonic shift in our soul. Sometimes we’re seeking, pioneering and actively searching for it, tired of the vacuum in our creative lives. Other times it hits us when we least expect. When the future path is forged and settled - it comes as a freight train in a deep dive and profoundly shifts our vision. When we have that special thing on our horizon. We are ready and open to that experience, and when even the smallest chance occurs we need to grab it. When it embraces us back we know that the future will never be the same. II: Embraced by the Medium A year on. I’ve started to commit to the possibilities of art as a career, making the decision to evade the life set before me of international intrigue, power games and indebtedness to unknown sources. I was researching local colleges and even applying to Kubert school.[though as usual life happened - a girl - and I would stay local]. I would need a more varied portfolio to get into the Uni. So the foundation year was the next step. I tried to keep my options open. Painting, sculpture, even photography or film were viable options, as long as I got to create worlds from my imagination the medium seemed to matter little. Then one weekend I popped back to my old house to see my friends. You have to bear in mind that the closest I got to a camera at this point in my life was a disposable one, and I rarely had enough money to develop those films. [I played with polaroid a bit when I was little but that world had ended long ago] As always I had my sketchbook with me and by some provenance a small pack of multicoloured plasticine - I was practising sculpture on the go at the time. Since I was away my friend set up an office in my old room, acquired a webcam, and on some inspection there was a windows media player which had an option to record frames! And play them back!!! I rolled a clay ball across and we all had a giggle about it. After catching up I went to sleep early in the office, but I could not. The siren call was so loud. I felt awake, like I somehow touched the lightning and survived. I had ideas. Taking out the plasticine I frantically sculpted up a character, it was a blue dog-like horned imp with a white vest. I still remember how my hands shook at excitement, how my stomach was full of excited butterflies for this new possibility which opened up before me. Then I got to animate it. Click. Click. Click. Each new frame brought joy to me as the imp came to life. He moved, chuffed on a cigarette and had a seat. It was like an alternate dimension opened before me. It is one thing to understand something intellectually and a whole other to dive in, to experience it, to participate in the wonder of creation of it all. It was not enough though. Like a lustful lover I wanted more. So I made another character. A yellow and orange robot, which would transform. [I was overly ambitious even then]. I took matches to construct the pistons and poles throughout its body and gave it mechanical wings. A short one minute apocalyptic story, employing all kinds of props was forged. I even made it fly with some string attachment. My propensity for complexity took over and my head was bursting with creative joy. I didn’t sleep the whole night and carried on through the dawn into the morning. [my friends knew me to go off on an occasional creative journey so didn’t get too annoyed that I holed up in the office for the weekend]. When I emerged there were two stop motion micro films. I was glowing, despite lack of sleep, with accomplishment, with satisfaction and with excitement of where this would lead in my life. I was hooked. My life would never be the same again as I truly fell in love with animation, and what it would offer in creating imaginary worlds. Everything made sense and I saw pathways for the future which, before this, were unbeknownst to me. I would embark on a deepest of dives, and research for all things animation, just like I did with sequential art since early childhood; devouring academic books, theories and finding out how I could build a set-up for myself. It directly impacted my foundation year choices and fired me up throughout it - and in the end I built a whole rostrum set up there and my own lightbox from scratch [which I still have]. Though stop-motion did not become my chosen branch - drawing was always my first love, it would always hold a special place in my heart from that weekend when everything changed in a whirlwind for me - forever.