Haiga 490 Santoka haiku

Haiku by Taneda, Santoka. Artwork by myself.
Santoka was always on the road. Being a stranger wherever he went, I am sure that many times he was being barked at on the way. And at the same time, we can appreciate many layers of meaning in this haiku.

Yesterday, newly married couple came to see me. I congratulated them again, and presented a framed version of the storyboard "Well Done". The momiji tree in this story was planted by the groom's father who passed away a few weeks ago, Jan. 9 this year.

Haiga 489 Alenka Zorman haiku

Haiku by Alenka Zorman of Slovenia. Artwork by myself.
I made this haiga when Alenka's daughter got married.

And yesterday, my wife and I were at a wedding as the matchmakers. I made a speech at the beginning of the wedding party, and it was quite a difficult one to make for the groom's father, my close friend, had suddenly passed away at the beginning of this month. The party lasted almost four hours, a lot of laughters and tears. Turned out to be a very memorable occasion.

Haiga 488 Santoka haiku

Haiku by Taneda, Santoka. Artwork by myself.
This is one of the first Santoka haiga I made. The curving brush stroke depict two things: one a kasa he wore, another the lone path he was walking.

Haiga 487 Santoka haiku

Haiku by Taneda, Santoka. Artwork by myself.
The haiga shows Santoka's silhouette in traveling monk attire with kasa(hat).
The black and white version was once used for a book published at Jim Kacian's Red Moon Press.
When I was making this haiga, I thought the use of gradation was suitable to show the mood of it.
I did the translation myself, which I am not sure if appropriate. Any suggestion welcomed.

Haiga 486 Romano Zeraschi haiku

Haiku by Romano Zeraschi (Italy). Photo by myself.
Romano san sends me a batch of haiku time to time, and just a few days ago, he sent a new batch. I selected this haiku (original was slightly different, but Romano san agreed with the change I made).
At first I made two stamps of foot, and was going to make a footprints haiga. But, as I watched the handmade stamps, second idea came, which is what you see here.

Haiga 485 Peter Newton haiku 4

Haiku by Peter Newton. Artwork by myself.
I wanted to give the old key another chance to open something, and I thought making it into a haiga will open up the possibility.
For the drawing like this, I use sumi brush. Draw the lines slowly, letting all the small hand quiverings show. I feel that lines like these have warm and antique qualities.

It was pleasure working on Peter's haiku.

I am open to other collaborations so if anybody interested, send a batch of your haiku to me.
email: seehaikuhere(at)gmail(dot)com

Haiga 484 Peter Newton haiku 3

Haiku by Peter Newton. Photograph by myself.
When I read this haiku, I wanted to assemble a still-life myself, and make it as the object of the haiga.
For the still-life, I combined something almost permanent (the lens like transparent object) and something transitory (drips of water). Overall gentle and quite grey scale is befitting to the mood of the haiku, I think.
I like transparent object. It is there but at the same time not there. It has its own self, but it dissolve into the surroundings. My last name, Shimizu, means clear water. Maybe that has something to do with my preference to transparency.

Haiga 483 Peter Newton haiku 2

Haiku: Peter Newton. Artwork: Kuniharu Shimizu.
Light as a feather is the mood I get from this haiku, and visualized it accordingly by thin lines and pastel colors. Also I invented a font and hand-wrote the verse in a way that fits the haiku and the style of drawing.

Haiga 483 Peter Newton haiku 1

Haiku by Peter Newton. Photo by myself.
Peter sent me a batch of haiku the other day. I am making some haiga from it. Here is one of them.
I wanted to make the haiga look like done by the childish hand.

Peter Newton is a poet and stained glass artist in Winchendon,
Massachusetts. His poems can be found in a variety of print and on-line
haiku journals, as well as on Twitter.com/The PeterNewton

"Baker's Dozen" arrived

Long waited anthology finally arrived today.
"The Baker's Dozen the Cole Foundation Collection: Volume 3"
Cole san also enclosed "Vol. 1 and 2", plus" Paul and Papa - Innocence and Emotions, Poems for the Generations"

Vol.3, in which my haiku and haibun are included, is a handsome book. It is about the letter size and thick, but light enough to hold in hands. Inside pages are nicely layouted, easy on the eyes. There are so many poems to read. Sure will be my bed side companion for a while.

Dr. Harris "Cole" Vernick- Cole Foundation Editor
Maxene A. Alexander- Executive Editor
Yvonne Marie Crain- Senior Editor
Vivienne L. Harding- Managing Editor
I thank you all for the wonderful publication.

Haiga 482 LED haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.
LED, or light-emitting diode, is the new light source these days. Especially the blue one, which was invented by a Japanese, seems to be everywhere, decorating trees, houses, buildings. Trees at the park nearby are no exception; LED magically turn ordinary looking trees into something fantastic.

Haiga 481 Alan Summers haiku 2

Haiku by Alan Summers. Artwork by myself.
This is a rather challenging haiku to visualize. The first images that came to my mind as I read this haiku were artworks by Georgia O'keeffe; blow up images of flowers and abstract landscapes. I kind of liked the idea so I decided to use O'keeffe's style.

Haiga 480 Ramona Linke haiku 2

Haiku by Ramona Linke, Germany. Artwork by myself.
I do not think there are male and female in snow flakes, but I wanted to add that attribute to them in this haiga. If you notice, the angle of small branches of each flake differ.Which is which...nobody knows. The two flacks are coming close or drifting apart...nobody knows, either.

Haiga 479 Ramona Linke haiku

Haiku by Ramona Linke of Germany. Photo by myself.
Ramona san sent me a batch of her haiku. She is a painter herself, and I can identify with what she writes in the haiku.
For the photo, I used a thin rice paper and crumple it lightly. "Lightly" is the key here to show the proper crumpleness. Also, lighting is important; details should be visible both in high-light and shadow areas.

Haiga 478 Melissa Allen haiku 2

Another haiga for Melissa Allen's haiku. Artwrok by myself.
I tried to visualize bees' quick movements by swishing lines, and annoying buzzing by busy crayon strokes. And hotness by the vivid complementary colors.

On her blog, Melissa wrote a nice commentary about my haiga 476.

Haiga 477 Allan Summers haiku

Haiku by Allan Summers. Artwork by myself.
I came to know Allan san through Haijinx web-magazine project some years ago. He sent me a batch of haiku the other day. I liked this haiku right off. To convey the mood of the haiku, I chose this paper-cut out type approach, which was what Matisse used when he did his lithograph series called "Jazz", and is a suitable way to express the nature of the music.

Haiga 476 Melissa Allen haiku

Haiku by Melissa Allen. Artwork by myself.
Melissa sent me a batch of her haiku the other day. I liked this haiku much, and decided to make it into haiga. In my imagination, a comet is like a swallow swishing in the sky, hence this image.
With sumi brush, I first did line drawing of the bird with star head. The shape came out to be too simple, not so appealing by itself. So I tried to enhance the visual interest by adding some textures. The black lines by sumi brush was too strong so I lightened it by subtracting some black.

Storyboard: Well done

Story and artwork by myself.
I am paying closer attention to everyday life of my grand children. There seems to be unexpected hints for haiku and story from such attention.

Haiga 475 Santoka haiku

Haiku by Taneda Santoka. Artwork by myself. One of the Buddist monks' decepline is to visit house to house to gather what food each household can offer.
What comes from the sky, like rain, snow, and hailstone, fall equally to everyone, even to Santoka's bowl, too.
To visualize this idea, I placed white circles of equal size, equally spaced.

According to weather forecast, we expect substantial snow fall today and tomorrow. Possibly hailstones, too.

Haiga 474 An'ya haiku

Haiku by An'ya. Artwork by myself.
Around 1999, an unknown woman emailed me, asking if I could make something called haiga for her haiku. The woman was An'ya. I had no knowledge of haiga, but since it is my nature not to be able to say "No", I said Ok. That's how I got into this nitch world of haiku and haiga.

Another poem for my deceased friend

I wrote this poem after the funeral of my firend, Matsumoto san, a fine singer and song writer. He and I believe in eternal soul and rebirth, so I wanted to include the idea in the poem.
I would like to dedicate this poem to those who lost life at the Arizona shooting, too.

Haiga 473 Francine Porad haiku

Haiku by Francine Porad of USA. Artwork by myself.

Haiga 472 Polona Oblak haiku

Haiku by Polona Oblak. Artwork by myself.
Polona sent to me a batch of haiku the other day. She was away from haiku for a while but decided to return. I made a number of haiga for her before, and to welcome her return, I made a new one.

Those who wishes haiga collaboration with me, feel free to send a batch. I need more than ten to fifteen haiku to work with.
Until some years ago, I net-surfed extensively to approach haijins and to find haiku to work with, but I no longer have the energy, so I need to be approached now.

A Poem for My Friend: "Singing Voice"

I got a news of my friend's passing this morning.
For all morning I was thinking about him and came up with this poem.
--------
Today (Jan.11), I learned that the the youngest victim of the Arizona shooting was a girl who had been born on Sept. 11, 2001, and loved to sing. I would like to dedicate this poem to her, too.

Haiga 471 J.W. Hackett haiku

Haiku by J.W. Hackett. Artwork by Kuniharu Shimizu.

Matsumoto san, a good friend of mine, was a singer and a song writer. I supported his concert several times. His son and daughter are also great singers, too, and they took parts in the concert. The son is getting married at the end of this month, and my wife and I are asked to be the matchmakers, to which we are really looking forward.
Matsumoto san, however, collapsed when his brain bleeded heavily at the end of last year, and last night he passed away.

A bitter morning....
a family of sparrow on a branch
without chirping

Storyboard: No!!!

Story and artwork by myself.
In the previous storyboards, only one of my grandchild appeared. The other one, younger, is not happy so I add her to this story.

Haiga 470 Constellation haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.
Winter night, it's cold but air is clear and is a nice time to gaze stars. I made this image sometime ago. It is independent enough as is, and as a haiga, it is prabably overdone, but I thought I might add some haiku to it. The haiku is purely from my imagination. Beside sketch approach, there are many ways to writing haiku.

Haiga 469 Alexis Rotella haiku

Haiku by Alexis Rotella. Artwork by myself.
In Twitter, we use #haiku to tweet to those who are interested in haiku, and I found that there is a #micropoetry. Alexis's haiku here is really micro. I have never seen a free-form haiku this short. However short, it still posses power to inspire image like this.

Haiga 468 Alan Pizzarelli haiku

Haiku by Alan Pizzarelli of USA. Artwork by myself.
I often see some resemblance between Alan's haiku and Santoka ones. For this haiga, I used the similar bamboo branch as the one of haiga 463, Santoka haiku.
Santoka was a monk with little money, but somehow he managed to get some sake drink. If he were to go snow viewing, he certainly would have brought a bottle of sake along. And in case of Alan, one or two cigaretts perhaps.

Haiga 467 haiku from South Africa

Haiku by Maria Steyn of South Africa. Artwork by myself.
I did this haiga many years ago. I was just starting haiga then, and was so thrilled to collaborate with a haijin all the way from Africa. I did some haiga for her, and I remember she sent me some gift of African tastes. That was really nice.
I found Maria's comment on Facebook　tonight, and thought it would be nice to upload a fruit of our collaboration at this time.

New Year painting

Artwork by myself.
Though we are on the second day of the new year, the other side of the world is still on the first. While the festive mood still lingers, I post this painitng.
A Happy New Year to all who visit my blog.

Haiga 466

Haiku by Joann Klontz. Artwork by myself.

Haiga 465 Vincent Tripi haiku

Haiku by Vincent Tripi. Artwork by myself.
People welcome a new year in different ways. Here, Vincent shares rather unusual haiku about a new year.
I attended a New Year Church Service this morning, which started from 5:00am, and just returned home. There is no air conditioning at the sanctuary. It was so cold I had to attach 4 packs of hokkairo (body warmer of about paperback size, it's thin and adhesive on one side, and lasts about 5~6hours) on my back and two on my legs, and still not enough. I am now sipping my first coffee for this year, and warmth is slowly coming back.