Book Illustrator Days

Amirasolo and other Essays

Part 2. My Trip Around the Art World

Essay 18. BOOK ILLUSTRATOR DAYS

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

I am addicted to books. Books on sundry topics fascinate me. I collect novels, biographies, books on art and history, and of essays, short stories, and poetry. I also have a big number of local and imported picture books.

I won't forget my excitement everytime I entered the kindergarten library of the Holy Child Catholic school. Periodical exams for the 'selected students' were almost always held there. Selected students were the top ranking students from each section who were given the exams ahead of the other students. I belong to that group. Taking the exams there suited me fine for it gave me the chance to read the books of fairy tales, the Ladybird series especially, arranged on the shelves.

It was in 1988, while I was still working as editorial cartoonist for the We Forum Publications, that a fellow employee there, Malou Dela Cruz, suggested that I applied as textbook illustrator at Phoenix Publishing House. She said that she knew Adring Natividad, the assistant art Director of Phoenix. So, I went to Phoenix a few days after,  with a few samples of my cartoons, introduced myself to Adring, and took the talent test which I passed.

The books I was assigned to illustrate were for grade schoolers. The Illustrations required were just line drawings using pen and ink. I levelled up and did full color Illustrations for them six years later, in 1994, when I was commissioned to do a series of cover art for "Florante at Laura" and their Pagbasa (Reading) textbooks.

Although doing a dozen or two line drawings a day could be tedious at times, I'd say that I was contented. I earned more doing that than doing editorial cartoons, around twice the daily minimum wage at the time. Because I was being paid per piece, the more time and industry I put into the job, the higher the pay I would get.

My pay as book illustrator paled in comparison to that being earned by my former classmates who worked in animation, which could amount to 20 thousand pesos a week. Despite that, I never regretted working as book illustrator, because that job enabled me anyway to put food on our table, sent my boys to school, and still have a little extra besides for little luxuries. By little luxuries, I mean being able to watch movies once in a while, eat out at restaurants, take my kids to swimming pools, buy toys and snorkeling gear, and enlarge my collection of books among others. Add also to that the intangible bliss I experienced everytime I see my artworks published. While I only used to admire the art of others in books before, my being a book illustrator gave me the chance to present my art for others to admire.

The fellow textbook illustrators I worked with who I felt were the best in our field were Leo Cultura, Danny Reyes, and Marco Calambro. Leo Cultura is still at it, I think, doing  llustrations for American educational book publishers. He is very successful, combining in himself not only a marked talent for drawing characters in his own distinctive style, but also a knack for business. He was entrepreneurial. He had formed a company in the mid-1990s, the Raketshop, which had to employ several illustrators to meet the brisk demand for his illustrations by those American publishers.

Danny Reyes, who I heard succumbed to diabetes many years ago, was the darling of local textbook publishers who competed for his services. They saw in his cartoony children and other characters the style that suits best the taste of grade school pupils and their parents.

And then there was Marco Calambro, the guy whose drawings I admired the most. An adept realistic illustrator, he was always assigned the job of illustrating high school textbooks. I learned a lot from him. He gave me insights into his drawing methods. His drawings, especially of the human figures, were on a par with those done by Fernando Amorsolo early in the latter's career as book illustrator.

I wonder where Marco is now. I can't find him. He is not in facebook. I asked Eddie Yabut, former Editor-in-chief and now consultant of Bookmark, on how Marco is doing. Eddie said he has no news of him. Marco was no longer doing Illustrations for them.

The series of cover art I did for Phoenix Publishing was a landmark in my career as professional artist. I began to employ and develop in those cover Illustrations the sharp-focused realist technique that would be my trademark style when I went on later to illustrate picture books.

When I visited picture book publishers to apply as illustrator, those Phoenix cover Illustrations formed part of the portfolio I showed them. The publishing houses for which I illustrated picture books were Rex Printing and Tahanan Books for Young Readers. I also did the cover and inside Illustrations for a novel for Adarna House and for a book on Economics for Bookmark. I even illustrated a Cebuano picture book commissioned me by a Finnish English teacher whose wife, the author of the book, is from Bohol.

I thought that the Cebuano picture book was to be my last. I did that in 2008, when I was 52 years old. I devoted the years after that to painting, hoping to make a name for myself as a serious painter. I was wrong, because I was asked late last year by Bookmark to illustrate a picture book for them. I was quite reluctant at first to take on the project, knowing the long nights and intense effort such a project would require.

But when I learned what the book is all about and the images I need to paint, I accepted the offer with enthusiasm. The Illustrations shall be depictions of pre-war Malabon and the people living there at the time. So now, at age 64, when I thought I'm through with children's books, I am hard at work again doing the Illustrations for one in between finishing commissioned works.

Don't think I'm complaining. I'm not. Why should I when my passion for books and art hasn't been extinguished yet.