alternative christmas tree by amalia dulhan is this year’s second attempt to convince everybody to stop buying cut trees!
amalia dulhan is a talented bucharest-based painter as well as a friend of mine.
when i started thinking about my “tree” i didn’t even thing that somebody might’ve beaten me to the punch! :) it seems that i and daria share the same passion for little animals dangling on a christmas tree.
i personally wouldn’t stop here with the unusual decorations, i would hang there everything i can find – shoes, toys, coffee cups, plastic fruit for a tropical theme, etc. maybe next year. now, my inspiration was to do something light, white and airy.
to start, you only have to take a walk in the park or in a forest and pick up what’s up for grabs there. i found some beautiful branches. i painted a few white layers on them but i didn’t want it to be impeccable.
then i did the bells in simple colors out of egg cartons and i gave them white threads. i could have added paper petals or beads, but i wanted them simple. i knew how the animals were going to look so i made them white: a layer of gesso and then two layers of acrylic white, regardless if they wanted it or not while they were transported over from china in a container.
the white flowers received the same treatment. originally, they are made of white tissue with black spots and neon green center. it sounds better than it was. i drenched them in glue diluted with water and mixed with some construction plaster and then covered them in acrylic white. i’ll admit i had the beads lying around the house. and that’s about it.
it looks great up there on the wall. i declare myself satisfied.
all those inspired by my white tree should paint white (or any other color) everything they find around the house. making stuff yourself is joy guarantee. if you add the fact that you save a 6-foot fir tree from being chopped off, you’re a different person this christmas! :)
thank you very much, amalia, for painting it all white for us!
this idea would be fun to recreate with the help of your entire family. the decorations could be little mementos of the year coming to an end: stubs from cinema tickets, pictures of the family, flyers of shows, icecream wrappers, anything that reminds of happy times. how does it sound?
photo credits: amalia dulhan
