Congratulations to all of our entrants into the Braille Art competition 2024!
You can enjoy all of the impressive art created by young people with a vision impairment below and find out who our talent winners are!
With thanks to our judge, The Blind Braille Artist and VICTA Patron, Clarke Reynolds.
Category 1 – braille your name (age: 0 to 10 years)
1st place, Hannah, age 7
Congratulations to our winner of the braille your name competition, Hannah, who used cupcakes to represent her name!
Hannah loves cake so she combined one of her favourite things with braille! First she made her cupcakes, then iced them, and finally brailled her name onto them using sweets. The braille toppings are Smarties and the borders are made from Cadbury’s chocolate fingers.
Clarke loved the idea of using cupcakes to represent braille and we were impressed by how much hard work and care Hannah had put into baking and presenting her braille cakes, well done Hannah!
Image description: Hannah is at the decorating stage – she has iced 7 cupcakes with brown chocolate icing and 3 with white icing. She has her hand in a bowl of Smarties ready to add them for the braille.
Hannah’s finished cakes, iced and brailled and arranged on a tin foil background so that they spell her name. She has used chocolate fingers to create a border for her art.
Hannah is standing in front of her cake display with a big smile on her face.
Runner-up,
Juliana, age 7
Congratulations to our runner-up, Juliana, who had fun practicing her braille, using buttons to represent her name.
Juliana is sticking flower shaped buttons to a sheet of purple paper, she has a braille block to help her learn the formation of the braille.
Juliana’s finished artwork. Black buttons have been arranged onto a yellow sheet of paper and different coloured flower buttons onto purple paper. She has also written her name below with a big heart and a star at the end.
Category 2 – braille in pictures themed around ‘time’
(Age: 11 to 29 years)
1st place, Bella, age 17
Congratulations to Bella who is the winner of the ‘time’ themed braille art category with her tactile pocket watch.
Bella is holding up her tactile clock artwork and is smiling. The braille along the top reads ‘In the picture there is a pocket watch with a white face and a gold ring which are both textured. It has a jingly bell with a ribbon chain. It has numbers in print and braille. And tactile hands.’
A close up of the textured clock painting and the numbers with braille overlaid.
Runner up, Nathan, age 19
Congratulations to Nathan who created his detailed braille smart watch. The image has been embossed using a brailler onto white braille paper and the watch shows the time at 12:34.
A close-up of the watch, the shape of which has been created using braille dots.
A birds-eye view of the watch artwork.
Category 3 – schools and organisations
1st place, Great Binfield’s Primary School
Congratulations to students at Great Binfield’s Primary School for their winning entries!
Farrah has arranged tires on the ground outside to write her name in braille.
Aria holding up her name and smiling. She has used eye stickers to create the braille and stuck them to black paper.
George, age 10 has used swell paper to create a tactile clock. The outline of the braille numbers is raised and he has coloured in the centre of the dots in different colours. The braille in the top right corner reads ‘tactile clock’.
The gallery – under 10s
Daisy, age 5
Daisy has used human treats and dog treats to represent he name in braille. She has arranged them on a large black tray and is standing behind smiling.
Brady, age 7
Brady used a piece of artificial grass, which he used as a field and then added the adjoining beads for his name in braille, which Brady used to represent stones in the field.
Benji, age 9
Benji wrote his name in one of his favourite things, sweets!
Gabriella, age 3
Gabriella has arranged fruit stones to form her name in braille onto a salt background.
Maia, age 8
Maia is sticking jewel stickers to a braille template to make her name in braille.
Year 6 student, Lambeth Sensory Support Service
The student created a tactile scene representing the seasons. The braille for each season has been added – Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Each season sits on a different coloured felt background with foam shapes stuck on top. Autumn has orange leaves. Winter has two white snowflakes. Spring has teardrop shaped leaves in shades of green. Summer has flowers and glittery insects.
The gallery – 10 plus – Time
Dayzie, age 15
Dayzie has made a tactile Apple watch using grey air drying clay and has attached it to white paper. The centre of the watch has been divided into four sections and each contains tactile representations of each of the seasons. The names of the different seasons are written in braille around the outside of the watch. Dayzie has also added tactile drawings around the outside – there is a snowman, raindrops, swirls, a sun, insects, glasses and flowers.
She has included braille instructions underneath it that read ‘Thursday 4th January 2024. World Braille Day. Planning my VICTA competition entry using air dried clay recreate my apple watch and device it into the four seasons – winter, autumn, spring, summer.’
Shane, age 10
Shane has created a tactile pocket watch with braille numbers. He has painted a paper circle black and gold and stuck on both numbers and their braille representation. The clock hands have been attached using a split pin so that they turn. The chain for the pocket watch has been made using a white and black paperchain.
Freya, age 13
Freya’s art represents the seasons. She has used four vertical strips of paper in the background to represent the seasons: green, pink, yellow and blue. Freya has made a tree stuck in the centre of the picture using lollipop sticks. The branches stretch across the different seasons and are decorated appropriately. Spring has blossom flowers, summer has green leaves, autumn has foil leaves and winter has pompom snowballs. Each season has braille words scattered across it.
Spring: Pretty. Daffodils. Warm. Flowers.
Summer: Sun. Beach. Holidays.
Autumn: Leaves. Pumpkins. Halloween. Acorns.
Winter: Cold. Christmas. Snow.
Salimah, age 12
Salimah has created a tactile collage of painting and textured items to represent the theme of time. She has painted four trees to represent the four seasons. She has drawn a calendar, written the word ‘time’ so that it looks like it is going down some stairs and added the date ‘2024’ with the 4 created by punching holes into a piece of cardboard. In the top left there is a raised sign made from cardboard. The word time has been stuck to it using thin sticks of wood.
Brody, age 17
Brody has created a tactile collage called ‘summer timeline’. Along the bottom he has stuck artificial grass, in the bottom right is a pink picket fence with artificial branches and a purple flower growing behind it. In the bottom left, Brody has stuck a delicate butterfly. In the centre of the page, Brody has created a human figure that looks like he is leaping for joy – his body is made from thin white art straws, the head is a blue paper oval and the hair/hat is 3D orange swirls. The character is holding a white bunch of flowers. In the top left is the sun, created using felt shapes. Along the top Brody has stuck corrugated blue card in a waved shape and stuck five white pompoms on top.
Year 4 child
‘Braille Art Hands’. They have taken a photo of their hands and stuck them in the middle of the paper. They have used buttons and scrunched up paper and stickers to add braille around the edge.
School entries
Runners up
Moor End Academy , ages 12 to 15 years
For the subject time, each child has selected their birthday month and has decorated a tree as to how it would look at that time of year. The trees show a representation of time as it passes through the months, changing the tree as it goes. Each tree has the name of the month it represents in braille above it.
January
Silver tinsel covers the ground. The tree is decorated with lollipop sticks, white buttons and gold star shaped gem stickers.
February
White cotton wool covers the base. The branches are decorated with broken lollipop sticks.
March
They have selected different buttons all shades of brown and orange. They run up the trunk and along the branches.
April
The branches are decorated with strips of green foam. In the centre of the trunk is a green pipe cleaner. There are six gem flowers along the bottom of the tree and in the sky is a foam yellow circle representing the sun.
April
The branches are decorated with green foam leaf shapes and green gems.
May
There is a cinnamon stick in the centre of the tree trunk. The branches are decorated with green hearts, green dots, buttons and gems.
June
The branches are decorated with pink blossom, created by scrunching tissue paper into flower shapes.
July
The branches are packed full of colourful buttons, gem flowers and green felt leaves. There are also different coloured gem flowers along the bottom of the trunk.
August
The trunk has been decorated with three cinnamon sticks. The branches are decorated with apples made from shiny red paper with green felt leaves. One apple has fallen from the tree and is sitting on the ground next to the tree.
September
The tree is decorated with dense balls of yellow and orange tissue paper. There are some along the base of the tree and some felt leaves and gems falling from the tree.
October
The tree is covered in different coloured foam leaf shapes. In the centre of the trunk are lots of small orange dots. To the right there is a pumpkin with a raised Halloween face made from foam shapes.
November
Orange and yellow foam leaves are scattered across the picture along with gold and red gems as if they are falling from the tree.
December
Four cinnamon sticks run up the trunk, each stick has been decorated with round silver gems. Around the tree are white and brown oval foam shapes.
Dorton College, ages 16 to 25 years
The students from the RSBC Dorton College made a group art installation, using a number of techniques.
“The clock is divided into four seasons, and this is painted with scented puff paint: Yellow-banana Summer, Orange -orange autumn, green-mint spring and black -liquorice winter, the students choose which colour they wanted to paint and what season it related to. They divided the speech bubble and painted a section each.
The students brailed the seasons and the numbers. A student with a hearing impairment stuck the braille and the numbers round the clock and put on gold leaf. Another student who loves art coloured in the clock face with gold marker, the marks are preserved. The idea behind the speech bubble is giving visually impaired and blind students a voice, to be heard without question. To see the person, before any impairment, that they have they the right to be valued for who they are, before any thing else. This is pure access.”
New College Worcester, ages 10 to 29 years
Aliyah, age 12 – ‘Seasons’
Aliyah has created four tactile images from air drying clay to represent each of the seasons and positioned them next to the name of the season in braille. Autumn is a brown leaf, winter is a white snowflake, spring is a yellow flower and summer is a chocolate ice cream in an orange waffle cone.
Darcy, age 11- ‘Tea Time’
Darcy has created what looks like a pizza with a slice taken from it. Cream tissue paper is sandwiched between two card shapes. They have decorated it with tomato shapes made from textured red paper and shiny green foil paper.
Finn, age 12 – ‘Clock’
Finn has made a 3D clock from card with a white paper face. The numbers are set in braille using different coloured pompoms. He has made arrow-shapes clock hands and coloured them in black – they are attached using a split pin so that you can turn them.
Ruby, age 12 – ‘Jumble Time’
Ruby’s clock is decorated with shiny green foil paper. She has cut out numbers, coloured with felt top pens. The clock has hands made from textured yellow card.
Lawson, age 13 – ‘My Clock’
Lawson has made a clock from blue sugar paper with scrunchy paper around the outside. The numbers are made using pink Wikki Stix and the clock hands using brown corrugated card.
Jamie, age 14 – ‘Record in time’
Jamie has made a clock from cardboard, he has stuck on braille numbers, cardboard hands and a pattern using Wikki Stix.
George, age 12 – ‘The Cycle of Birds’
George has made a black bird using air drying clay. It has a red beak and red detail on the wings and has its wings out as if flying up away from its nest. The nest has been made by gluing together real sticks and has eggs sitting in the middle made from white air drying clay.
Ellie, age 13 – ‘Fossil Fish’
Ellie has used a branch with lots of smaller branches shooting off the sides to represent the shape of a fish fossil. She has glued white paper over the top to form a tactile image.
Rory, age 11 – ‘My Favourite Time of the Day, Breakfast with Toast and Jam’
Rory has created an image of a clock – he has stuck down yellow tissue paper and then a rectangle of foil for the screen. The time stuck on top is 8:15. There are three pom poms at the top and a wiggly yellow pipe cleaner for the wire. In the bottom left is a paper plate with corrugated card for the toast and ripped, textured, red card for the jam.
Maxwell, age 14 – ‘My Favourite Time on a Train’
Maxwell has printed an image of a modern train and painted it. He has stuck Wikki Stix around the edges to make the shape of the train tactile.
Zac, age 12 – ‘Seed Growing’
Zac has used a braille embosser to create a series of images. It starts with a pot, then a pot with a stalk emerging until a plant with branches has grown from the pot.
Isabel, age 14 – ‘Choices in Time’
Isabel has created a diamond/spinning top shape using a braille embosser.
[…] We are over the moon to announce that NCW came a Runner Up in the Schools category! Well done students! Please take a minute to admire their artwork below and if you would like to see all the other entries from VI children across the whole of the UK, please click here. […]