It’s time to announce the winners of the VICTA Braille Art competition 2022 and share all of the amazing entries in our gallery. There is so much creativity and talent to be enjoyed, a fantastic celebration of braille! A big thank you to everyone who entered and well done to our winners.
Category 1 – braille your name (age: 0 to 10 years)
1st place, Benjamin Bates, age 7
Congratulations to our winner of the braille your name competition, Benji, who has planted his name in braille in the form of a herb garden!
“This year Benji has brailled his name in the form of a herb garden, he has enjoyed watching it grow.”
Benji has used planting holders with a 4×3 grid of holes and has only planted in the holes that would represent where the dots would sit when brailling his name. The first photo shows Benji’s plants once they have grown and the second photo shows Benji smiling, ready to plant his seeds.
Runner-up, Gabriella, age 9
Congratulations to our runner-up, Gabriella, who has spelt out her name in braille using her Moshi Monster toys that she enjoys playing with.
A grid of paper circles has been laid out with each letter separated by a pencil. Gabriella has placed her colourful toys onto the corresponding dots to form her name.
Category 2 – braille in pictures! (Age: 11 to 29 years)
1st place, Phoebe Mabey, age 14
Congratulations to our winner of braille in pictures Phoebe, who created a colourful Picasso inspired portrait.
Phoebe has created a brightly coloured portrait using different coloured paper which has been cut into different shapes, brailled and arranged to form an abstract face on a blue background.
The hair is made of pink strips, with one smaller orange eye and a larger red one. She has a yellow rectangular nose and a green mouth. Each part of the face is labelled in braille with what it’s called, for example the strips of hair have the braille for ‘hair’ repeated across them.
Runner-up, Emily Whittle, age 12
Congratulations to runner-up Emily who has made a beautiful piece of art featuring a flower in a pot, decorated with braille.
Emily has described how she created her work of braille art:
“I used the Zychem machine to raise the picture of the flowers and the pot.
I used different coloured inks and water to create a rainbow effect on my flowers. I used cotton buds and acrylic paint to make dots which look like braille. This was in the form of Aboriginal Art using dots to create a picture.
I used lots of letter ‘L’s to make the patterns on the flowers and also the stems.
I brailled onto the plant pot using my Perkins machine.
I also sprinkled sea salt onto the ink to give texture to my picture.”
The gallery
Aaliyan, age 7
Aaliyan created his name in braille by doing hand painting with blue paint onto yellow paper.
Aizah, age 7
Aizah created her name in braille using cotton wool balls to represent clouds in the sky.
Amelia, age 8
Amelia has arranged a variety of interesting objects onto red paper to write out her name in braille. She has used cotton wool balls, wobbly eyes, polystyrene shapes, buttons and egg cartons.
Betsy, age 8
Betsy used fruit and sequins independently to represent her name in braille.
Poppy, age 8
Poppy has used her very colourful hair scrunchie collection to spell out her name in braille.
Constance, age 9
Constance is really interested in World War 2 and this has inspired her braille art. She has included photos of World War 2 planes and used poppies made from scrunched up red balls of paper with black dots in the centre to represent the braille.
Lily, age 9
Lily has used black buttons and copper pennies arranged on coloured paper to write her name in braille.
Dexter, age 6
Dexter loves fireworks and chose them to represent his name in braille. He has drawn different coloured fireworks, cut out into circles and arranged onto black paper.
Ethan, age 2
Dextar also helped his brother Ethan to write his name in braille using blueberries, he also had to try and stop him from eating them!
Hugo, age 9
Hugo came up with the idea himself to use his class in his photo. Hugo’s classmates are curled up to look like dots and have arranged themselves on the playground to form Hugo’s name in braille. The photo has been taken from a birds eye view looking down on the children.
Mohamed, age 6
Mohamed has created a finger painting and used different coloured paints on black paper to spell out his name in braille.
Siana, age 6
Siana created her name in braille by doing sponge painting. She decorated the frame of her picture using foam shaped stickers.
Ibrahim, age 6
Ibrahim created his name in braille by doing airplane sponge printing.
Tallulah
Tallulah has used different colourful materials to create a tactile braille name. She has twisted pipe cleaners to form circles and then filled them with different objects including plastic craft beads, colourful paint, foam stickers, ribbons and glitter.
Mera, age 10
Mera’s description of her rainbow heart artwork:
“My creation is a heart shape using braille letters for the word VICTA and I used coloured wool to make a rainbow on top, also I added a cloud with raindrops making my name MERA, a sun and glitter glue dots and pink to represent the word in braille ‘love’. So my creation is Mera love VICTA.”
Aiden, age 13
Aiden has decorated and brailled a ‘HALO’ XBOX computer game cover. There are tactile elements including felt, a glue gun ‘X’ and raised plastic dots. He has used braille to label the images and text making it an accessible version of the game cover!
Honey, age 11
Honey’s braille art is a beautiful colourful paper collage of a sunset and a red tulip. There are strips of bright blue, orange, and yellow with green strips for the grass, a red tulip shape and a round yellow sun. Each shape has been decorated with braille dots.
Amelie, age 13
Amelie has used sugar paper to create a lion. She has cut out the shape of a lion on orange paper and stuck it onto an olive green background. The lion’s main and tip of his tail are cut out of black paper. She has labelled all the parts of the lion using braille repeated in a pattern, for example ‘main’, ‘head’ and ‘legs’.
Daniel, age 10
Daniel’s description of his artwork:
Reindeer in the snow
My braille art is of a reindeer in the snow. At a Christmas display I got a chance to explore one of the reindeer figures and I wanted to try to recreate what I thought the reindeer looked like. The antlers were a bit tricky so I used braille letters because I think it gives a better curvy and twisted effect. For the reindeer’s head, body and legs I used the ‘for’ contraction. I asked my parents a lot of questions about what you can see if you look at a reindeer from the side and I added one eye and part of the nose. When I was happy with my reindeer, I painted the paper with a wide paintbrush in different shades of blue and added some white paint to make snow with just the tip of the brush. The background paint made the braille dots a bit faint so I covered the dots in black marker pen to make it stand out more against the light blue background.
Erica, age 11
Erica has painted a watercolour picture of a snowy scene with a dark blue sky and black trees. There is a small brown dog looking forwards towards the scene. Over the painting Erica has brailled her own poem which reads:
My best life
The inky black darkness was lit up aglow,
The source of it being the grounds covered in snow,
Trees towering and tall,
Were proudly silhouetted against a grey brick wall.
When suddenly out of the blue,
A dog scampered into view,
He was glossy and brown,
The most handsome in town,
He twister and turned,
Frolicked and squirmed,
Before glancing up at me,
With his eyes alight with glee,
They seemed to announce,
“come on I’m ready to pounce”
I snatched up a toy,
And threw it my lips forming “good boy”
The clock tower tolled seven in the morning,
Bringing the news the sun would soon be dawning.
I proceeded inside,
With my faithful dog Rusty following closely behind,
I lay down next to the fire,
Of its warmth I could think nought but to admire,
As Rusty flopped on my chest,
I murmured “my life is the best!!!”
Ellie, age 11
Ellie’s description of her artwork:
“I made this rainbow by typing the first braille letter of the the corresponding colour name in a rainbow arc. It took a few attempts to get the right rainbow shape. I then coloured it in using wax crayons to match the correct letter (I have textures on my crayons so I know what colour they are). It is a picture that both people with and without sight can appreciate. I hope you like my creation.”
Emily, age 11
Emily has stuck brightly coloured paper cut into different shapes onto a white background. Each paper shape has been brailled with its corresponding shape name.
Isobel, age 11
Isobel’s artwork is of a flower blowing across the ground and has been created by using braille onto white paper.
Underneath the flower shape is braille reading: “I have made a dead flower head being pushed along the ground by a breeze.”
Jamie, age 13
Jamie’s design is of dolphins jumping. He has cut out three white dolphin shapes and stuck them onto a blue background. He has brailled descriptive words and phrases such as ‘playful’, ‘high jumping’, ‘clever’ and ‘social’ on different coloured strips of paper that he has then stuck on each dolphin.
Joe, age 13
Joe has cut different coloured paper shapes and arranged them onto a white background to create his version of the solar system. Each of the shapes has been brailled to show which planet it represents. In the background are patterns of dots linking together the planets in the solar system.
Karan, age 10
Karan created his name in Grade 2 braille by making trees using a range of different textures and materials. The leaves have been arranged to form his name in braille.
Lawson, age 11
‘My Dog Quincy’ by Lawson was created by cutting out the shape of a dog using black paper which was then covered in strips of black paper labelled using braille to read key words such as ‘walk’, ‘quick’ and ‘wagging’.
Leo, age 14
‘My bike’ by Leo. Leo has used a pattern of braille dots on white paper to create the shape of his bike.
Kacey, age 13
‘It’s autumn time in the forest and there are leaves falling everywhere’. Kacey has used brown sugar paper stuck onto blue card to create the shape of a tree trunk and branches. The leaves are cut from olive green paper. The elements of the tree have been labelled with braille.
Len, age 13
Len has stuck strips of white paper onto a green background to create a birds eye view of Tottenham Football Ground. The different elements have been labelled with elements such as ‘pitch’ and ‘goal’.
Lucy, age 10
Lucy has used different coloured sports cones to spell out her name on the playground.
Maxwell, age 12
Maxwell has created a collage in celebration of Louie Braille. It features a cartoon cut out of Louis Braille, a Lamborghini and a picture of a glamorous mansion.
McKenzie, age 13
McKenzie has coloured a picture of a parent using bright felt tips and brailled over the image with the names of the colours.
Natalie, age 12
Natalie used braille dots on white paper to create the shape of a bunny rabbit. She has then cut out the rabbit and stuck it onto a green background.
Roman, age 13
Roman has created a colourful paper collage of a tree standing on grass next to a bright red poppy. There is a bright yellow sun in one corner and a white cloud in the other. Each element has been labelled with braille such as ‘leaf’, ‘sun’ and ‘oak’.
William, age 14
William has used braille dots on white paper to create a self portrait. He has cut around the shape and mounted it onto blue card so that it stands out.
LP, age 11 and BP, age 13
They have created instructions of how to use braille to create an image of a football. If you would like to try it at home, you can download their Word document.
Monica, age 15
Monica has created instructions of how to use braille to create an image of a bunny. If you would like to try it at home, you can download her Word document.
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