It was the morning after Ondoy poured a month’s worth of rainfall on Metro Manila. Wishing to say a prayer of thanksgiving after being kept safe from the massive and deadly flooding unleashed by the storm, Fernando “Pando” Manipon went out to the garden balcony of his fifth floor unit in Windermere Apartments, an old five-story stone building that stands as one of the last few witnesses of Malate’s historic and once aristocratic character.

The sun had started to peek out from behind the dark clouds and Pando found in his balcony a thick carpet of fallen leaves and flowers from his orchids and other plants that were decimated by the storm.

As he gathered the litter, he remembered a documentary he once saw about Kasuo Akasaki, a famous Japanese artist who specialized in leaf paintings. Akasaki’s works are made entirely of dried, fallen leaves which he would cut and paste on a canvas to make a painting as phenomenally detailed as any done with oil, paint or any other medium.

Pando was inspired to make his own leaf paintings using the leaves left over by Ondoy. Keeping with the theme of thanksgiving, he chose his parish church as his first subject—the 16th century Baroque-style Malate Church, dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Remedios (Our Lady of Remedies), which incidentally was once destroyed by a typhoon in 1868 and then rebuilt.

It took him a good three months to finish his leaf painting of Malate Church which he did on a 15"x20" size illustration board. In the process, leaf painting went from a “mere hobby to passion to obsession.”  He started doing more leaf paintings of old churches because he found them ideal for the medium.

“Old churches maximize the potentials and minimize the limitations of leaf painting. They’re easier to do according to the natural colors of the dried, fallen leaves, mostly argent-brown, which match the bricks and stones of old churches and also give the painting a natural sepia tone,” said Pando.

Two years after Ondoy, Pando now has a small collection of leaf paintings of old churches. Aside from Malate Church, he has done the San Agustin Church in Paoay, Ilocos Norte; the Church of San Matias in Tumauini, Isabela; San Pablo Church also in Isabela, the Church of Santo Tomas de Villanueva in Miagao, Iloilo; The Manila Cathedral, and The Cagsawa Church in Daraga, Albay.

For someone who slept through most of his art appreciation course in De La Salle University, I found the visual emotion of Pando’s leaf paintings strangely captivating, evoking melancholic sentiments and bittersweet nostalgia.

The veins and texture of the leaves are as expressive as any brush stroke in portraying the old churches.

His painting of San Matias Church under an ebbing sun is my favorite, perhaps because I always like how sunsets cast a golden glow over everything around.

I also couldn’t help but think about the amount of time and the level of commitment and artistry that must be required to depict a painting, leaf vein by leaf vein, and to come out with something as realistic if not more than those of other mediums.

“It’s really challenging, time-consuming, tedious work. Imagine the biggest piece of leaf cutting is about less than an inch, and the smallest is less than a millimetre. Then everything has to be precise, from the perspective and foreground down to the smallest details, like the size, color and angles of the bricks of the church,” Pando said.

“For instance, I stood in front of the Miagao church and counted exactly the number of bricks I needed for the façade, and that’s also how many leaf cuttings I used. When I was doing Malate church, sometimes I would excuse myself from a drinking session in a Malate watering hole just to take a look at the church, to see if I am getting the details right. It really has to be as close to the real thing as possible,” he added.

A Political Science major from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Pando balks at being called an artist. He started making a living as a fashion designer and entrepreneur in 1967. He still runs the iconic curio shop, Pandora’s Box, which is now in Harrison Plaza but has been in Malate since the heyday of folk houses. He also has a popular restaurant-bar in Asturias Street, Sampaloc, Manila, a stone’s throw away from the University of Santo Tomas.

Pando started dabbling in oil and watercolor paintings only when he was well into middle age (he’s now in his 60s), after taking a few Fine Arts subjects in the Philippine Women’s University, which is just across his apartment building.

“I was looking for a medium for productive, artistic expression to keep me busy,” he said. “There’s so much we can do with our idle time when you think about it. There are so many empty hours with nothing to do.”

In the last two years, Pando has dedicated those empty hours to leaf painting. “I would start from as early as 6 am and would work until my energy lasts, until my mind tells me, ‘Enough!’ The problem is sometimes it overwhelms me. I get so excited about it that I even skip lunch. Before I know it, it’s already late afternoon.”

He has also made a habit of collecting fallen leaves from his garden balcony and their rest house in Tagaytay. Sometimes he even solicits leaves from friends’ gardens. Then he segregates the leaves according to colors, dries them and stores them for future use. Some of the leaves he uses today are still from the morning after Ondoy’s devastation.

Pando has ventured outside the old churches theme for his next subject. He’s now doing a leaf portrait of Jose Rizal writing the Mi Ultimo Adios, as his personal tribute to the national hero on his 150th birth anniversary.

He wants to do more old churches after Rizal, at least enough to make an exhibit of them, for which he already has a title in mind: Visita Iglesia.

Pando also welcomes the opportunity to teach leaf painting to others who have the patience, diligence and artistry for it.

“All you really need is the time in your hands. You don’t need much. No expensive paints or brushes. There’s an abundance of free materials from nature with all the plants and trees. You’re even helping the environment because you’re recycling dried, fallen leaves,” he said. “And you don’t have to be an Akasaki to do leaf painting.”

Anybody can do it

If you want to channel your inner Akasaki like Pando, here’s what to do.

Materials needed

• Leaves
• Paper cutter, scissors, blade
• Glue diluted in water
• Magnifying glass

Pando’s Process

• Gather fallen leaves and remove the ribs. Only the leaf blades with veins are going to be used for painting. The veins add detail to the painting.
• Pando cleans the leaves by soaking them in vinegar and baking soda diluted in water. Then he dries them.
• He presses the leaves in between the pages of a phone directory to smoothen and dry them further. Sometimes he dries them for a few months. “It should be dry but pliable. If it crumbles when you use it, like what Narra tree leaves do, then it’s no good for leaf painting,” he said.
• Segregate the leaves according to color, from light to dark to make them easier to use. (You can put them in shoeboxes.)
• Draw an outline of a painting you want to create. (Pando sketches his old churches on an illustration board, copying from postcards and books.)
• Cut, carve and paste the leaves to create the image. Use a magnifying glass to get the smallest details right. Use a brush for the glue, which must be diluted in water. (Pando uses Elmer’s Glue.)
• Pando, like Akasaki, uses only the natural colors of the leaves. He doesn’t use artificial coloring. “Make use of the leaves and their veins to depict colors and different shades, to create tonal value and add texture to the painting. It’s like doing a puzzle or a collage. There must be a harmony of colors and there must be no boundaries,” Pando said.