Trees - Making

You can by trees. And you can also get mortgages. Many moons ago I read an article in Railway Modeller about makeing trees from wire.  So I did. First off wind some wire between two screws, the height of the tree will be about 2/3 of the distance between the screws. Bigger trees dodn't mean bigger wire, bigger trees just need more wire. When you wound enough wire to get your desired trunk thickness cut one end to release it from the screw, keeping a good grip so it doesn't all fall apart. Now twist the bundle a bit at one end to form the base of the trunk. Cut the other end from around the screw. Starting fro the base end, twist out bundles of wire, big to start with and getting smaller you go along. How thick the branches are and how dense is depends on the sort of tree you want. Look at pictures of trees in the winter with no leaves to see how it works. 

When you got bored stabbing yourself with the wire ends, I mean forming the branches, you need to add 'bark'. The wire will give some texture, but to fill in the gaps I use DAS clay with loads of PVA, working it into the gaps between the wire strands and adding lumps and bumps - bits where branches had been cut off lower down and so on.

When you get bored the second time from stabbing yourself with the wire ends apply some paint - trees, generally, aren't a uniform colour. 

Now stretch Poly Fibre over the branches to provide something for the foliage to stick too. Not too thick, it's only a support. You can buy Poly Fibre as a product or you can rip up a cushion that's stuffed with it. 

Depending on the time of year and species of tree, spray the fibre with diluted PVA and dust with you chose foilage. You might want to splay out some wire at the bottom of the tree to represent roots - not all trees go straight into the ground.