How to Make TREES for Theater - Set Design, Lion Witch Wardrobe

An inexpensive, low-budget way to create TREES for a stage/theater set. Set design for Lion Witch and Wardrobe.

On a minimal budget for community theater, I show how to build these lightweight and inexpensive trees using a wood/ 2X4 inner structure with cardboard CONCRETE FORM tubes (made for putting concrete inside, around fence posts). Everything is screwed together on a wood base. Then I use BUTCHER PAPER (cheap, brown) and wrinkled and folded and twisted that paper up (stomp on it, twist it, paint it and get it wet for more texture). This makes the butcher paper look like tree bark.

See my other video about using spray foam to make LIFE-SIZED Human stone sculptures for Lion, Witch, Wardrobe: youtu.be/YXktArCwyBs


I wrap that brown paper around the wood/concrete forms, up the trunk, and swirling and spreading it outward. I tear the paper, tear it in half (width) and twist it around all the forms, up and up. Getting it wet with paint allowed me to mold and form knots and hollows in the trunk/bark.

Then I put old branches in the topmost smaller cardboard tubes (concrete forms) and secured them in place with spray foam. I tied twine around the trees to hold the paper in place and screwed a bunch of screws through the paper and into the concrete forms. This held all the paper in place.

I sprayed EXPANDING SPRAY FOAM (brand: "Great Stuff") into every nook and cranny of the tree/paper to cement it all in place then removed most of the noticeable twine after all that dried.

LAST: I used very watered-down house paint (acrylic), a very cheap paint that I got in the discards pile at Home Depot. I poured all sorts of darker, unmixed paints into a big plastic roller tray (any large tray will work), and started with these unmixed and watered-down dark colors: painting deep in the cracks, crannies, and holes in the tree bark/paper. Do this FAST, don't be orderly. Nature is much more random than we tend to paint it.

After creating darker shadows and almost paper-pulpy wetness all over the tree trunk/ butcher paper, I put highlights/whiter paints only on the outermost edges (leaving the cracks as a darker paint). This created a marvelous depth to the bark.

We screwed the trees into the stage floor so they would not fall over. A ton of fun making these trees.

TOTAL BUDGET PER TREE: about $200 per tree.
$40 for 2 X 4s (wood) and screws
$80 for a roll of butcher paper (brown) to form up the bark.
$40 for concrete forms (cardboard tubes to hold cement - or any other stiff cardboard tubes).
$40 for spray foam
FREE old paint
FREE old branches for the top
$5 for twine