Haiga

How to Create Haiga (With Paint Blots)

| Danna Smith

Often called Zen Art, Haiga (hi-gah) combines Haiku and drawings on the same page. The poetry and the images work together to strengthen one another. Japanese poets often created Haiga in ink with simple brush strokes. In my book, How Do You Haiku? A Step-by-Step Guide with Templates, we explore Haiga through paint blots. A swipe of paint on paper feels much like the brush stroke the masters used. This project is fun for the whole family or classroom! Enjoy!

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Starting a Haiku Journal

| Danna Smith

Haiku is about “seeing”—about paying attention to a moment in nature and capturing that moment, like a snapshot, on paper with words (before it disappears). Famous Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), said that to write haiku you need to have the eyes and heart of a child. Seeing the world one snapshot at a time will help you connect with nature and make your haiku stronger. Haiku is one of my favorite forms, but I’ve never had a journal dedicated to it until recently.

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