This is what happens to me when I’m controlling my dietary habits, I start drawing about food. Yesterday, I was quite the prolific didlr. While listening to a funny podcast and waiting for my husband and son to come back for dinner, my mind wandered away. In so much wandering, the broccoli I was cooking slightly burnt, but the orecchiette and broccoli dish I eventually managed to serve was still good. Nobody is perfect.
Soup in the Country
One day late, but I’ll make up for it with three didls. After trying didlr on any device we have in the house, I finally draw something on my iPad. Somehow, the experience is different from what I expected. Not sure how is different, but I still had fun in the process.
Spring Fling
Have a Fantastic Day
Need a Sundress
Lately, I realized that although the rain doesn’t alter my mental health as other people proclaim, the fog definitely makes me less cheerful. Especially a week of thick, gray smog, followed by mild but persistent migraine. Not as productive as usual, I decided to follow my husband’s suggestion to watch some tutorials to better understand Painter. I discovered a few things in the process, but I know I only scratched the surface. I tried several brushes and played around with the color palette. Clearly, as reflected in the drawing’s title, I didn’t go for anything in particular.
Not Just A Lemon
Today, at 4:57 am, there was the first “Buh!” It was followed by a second “Buh!” and then by a string of swearwords in Italian. By 5:58, I had already consumed two espressos, but remembered I’m a lady. 8:15, I have posted a didl and even finished my first drawing with Painter. Definitely a great painting software. In case you are wondering, Nero is on the couch, blissfully sleeping the sleep of the content beagles.
It isn’t just for kids anymore. If you have never tried the unaltered joy of drawing with your fingers on a touch screen, I strongly suggest you to start with the didlr app. Free your imagination and let colors and lines tell your story. Today, I was hungry and in the mood for Japanese cuisine. Below is my self-explanatory story.
Never Enough Sushi
My illustrated fairytale has already gathered several endorsement by important people in 
the children’s book world. Two wonderful gentlekids, O. and R., were recently looking at one of my painted pumpkins and exclaimed, “It’s from The Prince’s Day Out!” It felt good to have my art recognized by two young readers.
Also recently, my niece Marisa, who is studying psychology, was asked to write an essay on a children’s book and she chose The Prince’s Day Out. I was touched by what she had to say about it.
Here is a translated excerpt from Marisa’s essay:
Monica dedicates her fairytale to her children asking them, “Don’t ever stop dreaming”.
Thanks to this short story we can learn and understand fundamental values like hope, love between family members , and the determination to overcome obstacles…
Life is not always beautiful and easy as it looks. Unfortunately, bad things can happen and we have to react, to find the strength within ourselves to go forward, because if we really want to achieve something we must fight and never lose hope. Because life is a continuous challenge…
Thanks to this fairy tale we can understand how important it is to stimulate and develop our imagination, to be mentally more flexible, and imagine better worlds. We are reminded of the importance of a loving and supportive family, but also of the importance of never lose hope!
It is said … “Dreams are wishes …” But we have to fight for our dreams, for what we believe, and do not let our dreams dry like tears on our pillows. We must try to make them a reality so that we earn our happiness…
Isn’t this the most amazing review, or what? And she’s barely 14!
If you don’t, you should. My husband showed me this fun app, didlr, a few days ago and I got hooked right away. Didlr is easy to use and it has a social aspect to it that makes it even more fun. I’ve been playing with it on several devices and the one I prefer to work with is my Windows Phone. Although didlr on Windows Phone has less functions than on the Surface and iPad, I’ve created several didls on it and I’m quite happy with the results. Didlr’s palette is bright and there’s this functionality to make the colors see-through which adds a lot to the experience. Once you publish your freshly-made didl, it goes on the didl stream where didlers can vote for it if they so fancy. You can also follow and be followed by other didlr’s enthusiasts, and even answer to their didls with one of yours. Just one glance at the didl stream and you’ll be amazed by the sheer talent out there. And lastly, probably the cooler feature is that didlr replays step by step all the actions you took to create your priceless work of art. Below are some of my didls. One of them cost me a peach cobbler. I was having too much fun drawing and the cobbler suffered irremediable damages. Nobody ate it, but I showed the friends who had invited us for dinner—and who were expecting the cobbler—my masterpiece. Rhapsody in White (which I created on my Surface and I realize now, I also misspelled) received mixed reviews. The Muse is a cruel mistress… By the way, I didl as momilp. See you there!
Wednesday, at a very unhappy hour, my father will drive me back to the airport. Two weeks just passed in a blink. Here are some of the murals I painted a few years ago while visiting my parents and my sister.
Better pictures will soon follow, but after three days of working on them I can’t wait to post something.
At the beginning, there wasn’t a lot to look at…
The oil version of yesterday’s drawing is prettier than the original, but it was more difficult to find the right words for it. I wrote several texts for this image, but all of them were too serious for a fairytale script. I finally settled for this one. See you in a month or so (Nanowrimo starts in two days.)
Monica La Porta 