How to Make a Palm Tree Diorama
A palm tree diorama shows a scene of one of more palm trees and the surrounding environments. Teachers often assign dioramas as a learning activity. Kids gain experience constructing a three-dimensional scene and demonstrating what they've learned about the subject. Adults make dioramas, too, as a hobby, art and for educational displays in museums. Palm trees grow primarily in tropical environments and come in numerous varieties, such as coconut palms, date palms, Chilean wine palm, windmill palms and king and queen palms and California's native fan palms. Transform a few common supplies into a palm tree diorama.
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Things You'll Need
- Boot box or other box with a separate lid
- Pictures of palm trees
- White art paper
- Tempura or water color paints
- Paint brushes
- Can or jar of water
- Scissors
- Sand
- White glue, 8 oz. or larger bottle
- Container, such as a yogurt tub
- Craft stick
- Construction paper
- Marking pens
- Fiber from real palm trees or bark shavings (optional)
Instructions
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Remove the lid from the box. Set the box on a piece of white art paper and trace around the box to create the backdrop. Move the box to one side.
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2
Look at pictures of the kind of palm tree you plant to feature in your diorama. Notice the details of the environment, for example the light blue ocean and pale beach of Bora Bora or the Nile river in Egypt. Notice the details of the palm trees such as whether the leaves are wider than the trunk and the color of the trunk.
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3
Sketch the background for your palm tree diorama on the art paper, keeping the drawing inside the lines you traced. For example, draw some ocean waves near the bottom and some clouds across the top. If you want a group of tall palm trees in the diorama and your box is rectangular, draw the picture with the paper oriented vertically. For a longer horizon and shorter palm trees, orient the paper horizontally.
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Paint the sketch for your palm tree diorama background. For example, paint blue ocean waves and a tropical sunset with yellow clouds and streaks of orange and pink. Allow the paint to dry. Depending on the type of paint you use and the temperature of the room it may take a half hour or more.
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Cut the art paper inside the lines you traced so that your tropical backdrop will fit inside the box. Turn the picture upside down and apply a line of glue 1/4-inch inside the edges of the paper.
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Push the backdrop against the inside of the bottom of the box. The box holds the diorama scene the way a theater or puppet stage displays a scene. Your tropical backdrop works the same way as a backdrop at the back of a stage.
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Set the box upright, so that the backdrop is in the right direction, with the sky at the top. The inside area of the box on the bottom becomes your palm tree diorama's beach. Mix two parts sand with one part white glue to create the beach. For example, mix 1 cup of sand with 1/2 cup of white glue for a beach in a horizontally-oriented boot box. Pour the sand into a container. Stir it with a craft stick while adding the glue.
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Spread the sand and glue mixture on the bottom of the box with the craft stick to form the beach in front of the backdrop. Form the sand in the shape you want for your palm tree scene, for example, use a thin layer of sand on the left to show to show where the beach meets the river or ocean. Push the sand into a mound on your right hand side of the scene, making the sand taller at the back to give your scene dimension.
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Cut a strip of tan or brown construction paper to form the palm tree's trunk. For example, cut a strip 9 inches long and 5 inches wide to fit inside a vertical boot box.
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Roll the construction paper by curling one long edge of the paper under and rolling the paper into a tube to form the palm tree's trunk. Adjust the thickness of the trunk by how tightly you roll the paper. Many types of palm trees are thicker at the base. Rolling the tube tighter at one end creates a palm tree trunk that flares at one end. Apply glue under the outside edge of the construction paper to hold the trunk together.
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Draw the palm tree leaves on green construction paper. Copy the shape of the leaves from a picture of the type of palm tree you want to make. Cut out the palm tree leaves.
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Glue the palm tree leaves to the top of the trunk. Glue the base of the trunk to the sand in the desired location to complete your palm tree diorama.
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Tips & Warnings
Pick up the diorama from the bottom when you move it.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
