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This week, in the lead up to the Orewa New World Santa Parade, expect to see several of these 2m high trees, painted by local volunteers of all ages, appear around Orewa town centre.
The 16 trees are a new initiative to put the town in festive mood and came about after Destination Orewa operations manager Hellen Wilkins saw a similar concept in Taupo last Christmas.
The trees, made of plywood, were distributed around the community for painting – to Estuary Arts Centre, Red Door Studios and the Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre.
Hibiscus Matters also received a tree, which will be painted by the paper’s Digital Manager, and artist, Pauline Stockhausen.
Two were painted with blackboard paint by Destination Orewa and chalk placed in a cubbyhole attached to each tree. Passers by are encouraged to leave their own Christmas messages. The blackboard trees will be wiped clean each day, creating a new blank canvas.
Estuary Arts Centre volunteers and visitors to the gallery have put together a tree using decoupage techniques combined with spray paint. The theme is native flora and fauna to go with the centre’s current Feather and Fin exhibition in association with Hibiscus Coast Forest & Bird.
Artists Susannah Law and Jude Howker (Ruby Jude) from Red Door Studios painted a Collage Christmas tree with decorations that include spray painted snowflakes, baubles and birds.
Students from Susannah’s Wednesday art class had a lot of fun decorating their tree using glitter as they are studying the work of NZ artist Reuben Paterson who makes his works using glitter and diamond dust.
Five of the trees went to Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre. Marketing and programmes coordinator Dan Brady and several young people at the centre painted the trees in various styles including a subtle black and green fern design with stencilled gold and silver baubles, a gold and silver tree and one with intricate black and white patterns.
Once the trees are positioned around Orewa, from November 20, they will be left there until the New Year.
