Picture Books for the Blind
Feb. 23rd, 2025 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithBringing picture books to life for blind and visually impaired children
For over 30 years, Living Paintings has been helping blind and visually impaired people enjoy art through touch and sound. Here, we explore the hard work involved in adapting a two-dimensional book for its readers.
Webb uses a fine sandpaper to smooth down the surface of his carvings. “The main challenge,” he says, “is carving tactile images that our visually impaired library members will find easy to follow.” Once he has completed the master artwork for Tiddler, multiple copies will be reproduced with a Thermopress machine that creates moulds and presses the shapes into heated plastic. Around 35 copies of each book will go into the Living Paintings library, which is free to join.
This makes me wonder if anyone is creating tactile books for the blind as the first audience. How would you rough-draft that? I'd probably want to use some sort of clay, and experiment with different kinds to figure out what worked best.
Alternatively, other types of materials could be used to create texture. Imagine a nature book about walking on the beach, illustrated with real rocks and seashells glued to thin wooden boards. You could store the pages in a wooden rack the way some Montessori materials are stored. Then each page would have some Braille text at the top and a translation in print at the bottom, telling about the things on that page.
For over 30 years, Living Paintings has been helping blind and visually impaired people enjoy art through touch and sound. Here, we explore the hard work involved in adapting a two-dimensional book for its readers.
Webb uses a fine sandpaper to smooth down the surface of his carvings. “The main challenge,” he says, “is carving tactile images that our visually impaired library members will find easy to follow.” Once he has completed the master artwork for Tiddler, multiple copies will be reproduced with a Thermopress machine that creates moulds and presses the shapes into heated plastic. Around 35 copies of each book will go into the Living Paintings library, which is free to join.
This makes me wonder if anyone is creating tactile books for the blind as the first audience. How would you rough-draft that? I'd probably want to use some sort of clay, and experiment with different kinds to figure out what worked best.
Alternatively, other types of materials could be used to create texture. Imagine a nature book about walking on the beach, illustrated with real rocks and seashells glued to thin wooden boards. You could store the pages in a wooden rack the way some Montessori materials are stored. Then each page would have some Braille text at the top and a translation in print at the bottom, telling about the things on that page.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-24 11:49 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2025-02-25 10:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-02-27 03:40 am (UTC)> fabric (either quilted or glued on)
> different textures of paper, probably glued
> ink/glue/etc with different textured additives.
Yes ...
Date: 2025-02-27 04:50 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-02-27 02:33 pm (UTC)There are other methods I can think of, but I removed the ones that I thought would be too bulky.
Stuff like 3d paint would do better for sungle-sheet art than a multi sheet book.
Wax sculpting wo I ld probably wear off too quickly.
I've actually pondered the idea of how one would make a writing system for a purely tactile languague, and one if the recurring ideas I had was sewing.
Also, now that I think about it, I am not sure that books would be the optimum writing system, since most of the touchable surface is folded away at any given time, & you'd have to keep interrupting your reading to fold/unfold pages.