DRAWING PICTURES WITH SIX BRAILLE DOTS!

Everyone can draw our Braille pictures.

What You Need

• A braille slate and stylus
• Paper (28-pound or heavier)
• An understanding of the Braille cell dot numbering system

The Braille Dot Numbering System for the Braille Slate and Stylus

The dots are numbered like this–

• Dot 1: upper right corner
• Dot 2: middle right
• Dot 3: lower right
• Dot 4: upper left
• Dot 5: middle left
• Dot 6: lower left.

TIP: work from right to left when using your slate. Read your drawing from left to right.

You do not have to know the braille code to draw our pictures. The required dots are shown in brackets. Ready to read a pattern?

HOW TO READ A PATTERN

Let’s use Christmas Stocking to learn how our patterns are written.

Row refers to a horizontal line of cells on the braille slate. If your slate is thirty cells wide, you can draw all of our patterns. If your slate is smaller, you should look at the number of cells needed before you start drawing.

Design is tells you how many cells wide the pattern is, and how many lines on the paper you will need. Always look at this first.

To draw the Christmas stocking, we need seven cells so we can draw with a small slate.

The stocking is only six lines long, so we could use a quarter sheet of letter-size paper.

Where do you want your picture to be on your paper? Maybe you want to center it. Maybe you want to draw it in the lower right quadrant. Decide where you want to draw, think about your slate placement and any spacing changes you might need to make.

Commas (,) tell you what goes in each cell. When you see the comma, you know you must move to the next cell.

Periods (.) tell you that you have finished the row, and you must move to the next line on your slate.

Row 1 of our Christmas stocking starts with an S in the first cell. In the second cell, we write all six dots (full cell). In the third, fourth, and fifth cells, we write the letter C. The last cell of the first row is another six dots (full cell).

If you don’t know the braille symbols, you find them in brackets. S uses dots 2, 3, and 4. C uses dots 1 and 4.

The last page of each pattern features a picture of the drawing as it appears in braille.

We hope you enjoy drawing our pictures.

Christmas Stocking

By Lena Hinkle

Design is 6 rows, 7 cells.

Note: Full size picture is the last full page of this document.

Begin design:

Row 1: S [234], full cell, C [14] three times, full cell.

Row 2: space 1 time, dots 456, space 3 times, L [123].

Row 3: space 1 time, dots 456, space 3 times, L [123].

Row 4: space 1 time, dots 456, space 3 times, L [123].

Row 5: space 1 time, AR [345], space 3 times, C [14], WH [156].

Row 6: space 1 time, GH [126], hyphen [36] four times, AR [345].

End design.