(Illustration copyright 1991 by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo)

This is one of the paper collages that I made in 1991 for my first picture book Sampaguita. It is based on a story by Maria Elena Paterno, whom I later met and came to know simply as Mailin. At that time, the only relevant work experience I had were having my pen and ink drawings published in a coffee table book, and doing page layout and editorial illustrations for a magazine aimed at middle managers in Asia. Sampaguita was my first attempt at illustrating a children’s story, my culminating exercise in the children’s illustration workshop that I accidentally stumbled into. Mailin’s story was one of the choices given to us to illustrate, and I fell in love with it as soon as I read it. I also knew right away that I could do something about it — with paper.

I love paper, you see. I find it hard to resist buying (and hoarding) all kinds of paper, and I always have tons of it lying around. That made it possible for me to do all the artwork for Sampaguita in just one night. It also helped that for days on end, I’ve already been doing the layout in my head. Plus, everything else that I needed was on hand that night: lots of manila business envelopes, colored construction paper, Elmer’s glue, illustration boards, sturdy plastic wrap (to protect the mounted collages upon presentation), masking tape, really nice scissors (I love nice scissors), a stripping knife, a steel pica ruler, a cutting mat, and best of all, a set of special artpaper.

I especially treasured that set of 8.5 x 11 artpaper. It had bright solid colors that graduated from black to purple, deep blue to magenta, yellow gold to scarlet to green – exactly like the one that that I used for the piece above. Back in 1991 when digital graphics software like Corel Draw or Adobe Photoshop didn’t exist yet, at least not in my world, that stash of special art paper was quite a find. I knew they’d come in handy someday, and I was right. When it was crunch time and the deadline was really tight (my favorite conditions for working, unfortunately) that set of special art paper formed the backbone of my artwork for Sampaguita. They served as the background sky for all the pages as the setting of the story progressed from the sinking of the sun at the end of the day, to the darkening and deepening of the night, to the breaking of dawn the morning after.

In the end, the feeling that I wanted to convey in the collages was just right, and I was very pleased with the result. Apparently, some other people liked them too because my art was judged one of the winners of a children’s illustration contest. That was the PBBY Larry Alcala Prize, sponsored by the Philippine Board on Books for Young People. Today, fifteen years later, I am still very pleased with my art for Sampaguita and I find it hard to change a thing even if I could.

Footnote :

That particular morning fifteen years ago, it’s as if I and my surroundings have merged. Paper, scissors, cardboard, glue, the room, the house, the rest of the world and I moved as one. I’ve been up all night working on my artwork for Sampaguita, and I was just finishing up, still full of energy, when my youngest son Mike woke up. He was only seven then, but he had an eye for good pictures and he knew exactly what was cool — or not. I told him there was something that I wanted to show him. “I’m submitting this for my art workshop,” I said. He surveyed the row of mounted collages lying flat on the floor and he looked up at me and said, “Mom, if they don’t want them can I have them?”

That Mike wanted to keep my artwork for himself was enough. It meant all the world to me then, because he was my seven year old son. Today, it has become even more important to me. I have come to value his appreciation of my work as an affirmation from a kindred spirit for whom I have great respect. By the time he turned eighteen Mike had become a true artist — more of a natural than I ever was at whatever he chose to do, more happily indulgent with whatever he chose to experience, surer at freehand drawing than I could ever be, more fierecely protective of the illustration style that was already his even before he stepped into art school.

Sampaguita will always be special for me, not only because it is my first book but also because it started, brought together and nourished so many good things in my career and in my life. Like most of the things that I do, simply creating the artwork for Sampaguita to my satisfaction was already enough of a reward for me. I never imagined that it would also result into my first published children’s book. That call from the publisher who eventually published it is something that I never expected, will never forget, and for which I will always be grateful.

(Text copyright 2007 by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo)

The author, Girl Valencia, is a singer and a prolific
award-winning songwriter who has written more
than 300 songs. One of her original compositions,
“Breaking Barriers,” was chosen to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima
and was awarded a Peace Prize for Excellence by
the Unesco. The Christmas Fireflies is Girl’s first
venture into the world of children’s book writing.

For me, not only was this a first in doing a whole
book entirely using digital art, it was also a chance
to try some graphic devices that I’ve been trained
to avoid before because they posed more challenges
in pre-press production and printing. But I indulged
myself anyway. I meticulously constructed a firefly
from scratch in Corel, used black and solid 100% cyan
background in a lot of pages, had body text printed
in white against a solid color in some pages.

After turning over all my digital output to the printer,
the next thing I saw were the color proofs. I was very
happy to see that all the colors came out exactly as
I expected them to. Even the printing of white body
text – thin serifs and all – against the solid backgrounds
did not disappoint. The whole exercise bolstered my
confidence in the company that was printing the book,
and it planted the seeds for my next book projects.

(Illustration copyright 2004 by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo)