OBJECTIVES

To develop a plastic work on the theme of the garden.

SKILLS

 To refine the children’s tactile, visual, auditory and olfactory perceptions.
 To enrich their vocabulary concerning kitchen gardens.
 To refine their aesthetic perception through contact with copies of artistic works.

MATERIALS

 Elements brought back from a visit in a garden (collected natural elements, photographs.. )
 Pictures cut out of magazines
 Scissors, glue, paintbrushes, gouache
 Engraving material – brought by the artist- : dry points, a press, cylinders.
 Various types of paper (« cloth paper », drawing paper…)
 Copybook-sized Plexiglas sheets
 Letterpress ink of various colours

REFERENCES

 Engravings by Lydia Lasota
 The King’s Kitchen Garden in Versailles

PROCEDURES

Before the sequence :

Visit the garden, bring back photographs, drawings, soil, fruit and vegetables – that have been bought there -, tape recordings, notes.

1) Observe, classify and describetthe traces of a visit in a garden :

Observe the photographs, drawings, and list the relevant words describing :

 the flowers
 the vegetables
 the herbs
 the soil (earth, gravel, seeds, flowerbeds, patches, plant-made patterns…)
 the animals (insects, snails, slugs, birds…)

2) Introduce alphabet book and artists’ works

Try to find how to use these lists of words, pictures and objects ; after letting the children speak, introduce

 old alphabet books or albums aimed at young people, like Alphabet by Kveta Pacovska or Alphabet gourmand (Gastronomy Alphabet) by Boris Tissot (Seuil Jeunesse).

 works by contemporary artists which illustrate the kitchen garden, such as 100 pages arrachées (100 torn off pages) by Sandrine Morsillo, or the pages engraved by Lydia Lasota.

The children will thus discover various ways of working pages where the letters are articulated with painted, cut out, photographed or engraved patterns.

3) Create alphabet books

Organise work-groups in order to create alphabet books from

 An alphabetical list of words illustrating the garden, that will be set out collectively : artichoke, beet…

 Photographic documents illustrating these words : pictures of artichokes, beets, carrots…

 Various devices : painting, collage, engraving – this latter enables the children to discover various techniques and to carry out one alphabet book per pupil, in contact with the plastic artist.

Engraving with Lasota, an engraver and plastic artist >Draw the illustration with a pencil on a drawing paper sheet ; put a copybook-size Plexiglas sheet on the drawing. Engrave the drawing which can be seen through the Plexiglas, with a dry point.

Cover the engraved Plexiglas sheet with letterpress ink ; put the drawing paper sheets on the inked plate, using as many sheets as there are children for each letter, then go to press.

Then, tear each sheet off its inked plate. Make a bound book out of all the printed pages.

Painting :

Paint the illustration, then the letter, trying to contrast vivid colours ; with a fine brush, paint the name of the object represented.

Collage

Cut illustrations out of nursery magazines ; stick down pictures centring the best views. Repaint some details of the pictures with gouache. Paint the background in a contrasting colour.

Then, copy again the alphabet letter and the illustrated word with a felt-tip pen or a fine brush ; for instance, for a pumpkin, the letter « P » and the other letters « umpkin ».

ASSESSMENT

It will concern the child’s ability to follow instructions in order to

 Search for and classify words or illustrations
 Form lettres
 Structure space on their sheets
 Elaborate the various phases of an engraving

It will also concern the impact of the introduction of artists’ works onto the cultural improvement of the child.

Aline Rutily Conseillère pédagogique en Arts Visuels -Yvelines - France