Veterans Art Project: VE Day 80

To mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, we invited our blind veterans to create artwork or take photographs inspired by the event.

Blind veteran Bryan became fully immersed in the project and created a number of thought provoking watercolours.

Bryan, 87,  joined the Royal Navy in November 1959 after completing an apprenticeship in the Merchant Navy. He spent 12 years in the Navy flying in helicopters. Upon retirement, Bryan joined the Royal Naval Reserve and finally retired in 1999. Bryan says:

"I had dabbled in watercolour painting while at sea, mainly cartooning for ship and squadron informal records and family birthday and Christmas cards – all very amateur and just for fun."

Painting after sight loss

After a gap of more than 30-years and having been diagnosed with age related macular degeneration in 2012, Bryan assumed that his amateur art days were over.

In late 2020 he was cleaning out a cupboard and found some art materials. He says:

"I spent a couple of hours looking at tutorials on the internet and they re-sparked my interest; soon I was trying out new techniques and discovering that loose-watercolour painting is still possible. My sight does prevent detailed work and sometimes colours surprise me.

"I’m still at the beginner’s stage and much of my work ends up as a muddy puddle in the bin but I’m beginning to understand that “less is more” and avoiding the urge to get into detail."

Bryan continues:

"I’m still in the process of translating a picture in my mind to something similar on paper. But the challenge is to try to capture those images, those moments which make the process and the disappointments worth the effort."

Bryan searches the internet for pictures from the Second World War and then uses magnifiers to get the details on the uniforms right. 

Memories of the Second World War

Bryan lived in London during the Second World War. He was collected from an orphanage by his parents on the same day that war was declared in 1939. He says:

"I don’t remember VE Day itself but I have memories from that time. I remember being rescued from the basement after the house two doors down from us took a direct hit during the blitz and I remember watching aeroplanes in the sky thinking it was ‘great fun’ 

"VE Day was a day of celebration and of people dancing in the street. But looking back, 80-years later and the celebration was the end of something dreadful. The cost in lives of that war was enormous. We must now learn to stop it from happening again and we must remember the sacrifices."