sound on/off
welcome to our website of completely free natural world resources for teachers, schools, parents and children
project tree tree art
All around the world, and all through history, as well as very many people drawing and painting and making lots of other art about trees, very many other people have been equally busy turning trees into art. (Of course many of us do this at least once a year when we decorate a tree at Christmas. You see, everybody's a tree artist!)
Tree art can be amazing, beautiful, funny or weird: decorated trees can have great significance like Hindu wedding trees in India or Easter trees in Germany, or they can be fun like these spotty trees beside the Thames in London.
In Texas, USA in the 1990s artists began wrapping colourful knitted squares around trees in public parks - you can see an example in the pictures below - and the idea of guerilla knitting or 'yarn bombing' soon spread around the world.
However imaginative their creations, tree artists always have great respect for the trees they decorate, and make sure they don't do anything to harm them.
Click on the pictures below to see some amazing
and extraordinary decorated trees from around the world.
As you can see, with tree art anything goes (as long as you are very careful not to damage the tree).
So, now you've seen what other tree artists get up to, how about designing your own decorated tree?
You can use one of the two design sheets we've provided here (we've given you a leafy summer tree and a bare winter tree for you to choose which suits your design best) or else draw your own tree before you decorate it.
Use pencil, pen, felt-tip, crayon, paint, collage - whatever you think works best -
and why not label it too to explain all the finer details of your design.
click here to download 'tree art with leaves'
design sheet
click here to download 'tree art without leaves'
design sheet
Other ideas to try:
-
The next step has got to be to decorate a real tree! You will need to get permission from whoever the tree belongs to, plan and prepare really carefully, and ideally work with someone else or as part of a team.
-
Keep a photographic record of any tree art you do, and always remember that trees are living things and can be easily damaged. Tree artists always take very special care of their trees!
