Welcome to the Jungle

Anchor two big birch branches upright in a tall cardboard drum or sturdy planter, weighted at the base with bricks or sand so they stay put when little hands grab on (and they will!). The drum itself is part of the installation. Once the artists start painting, they'll cover it with as much colour as the trees, so make sure it's a surface that can take it. Plain cardboard, an old metal bucket, or a primed plastic planter all work beautifully. Birch is gorgeous for the trunks because it's tall, slim, and has that papery white bark that takes paint so well. Any sturdy bare branch with character does the job. Florist suppliers stock long birch and manzanita, or wander your local park after a windy week and you'll usually find exactly what you need lying on the ground.

Set up cardboard tubes on metal stands alongside the branches as additional trees. Carpet tubes from your local flooring shop are gold for this. Free for the asking and as tall as a five-year-old. The stands keep them upright and steady, and the tubes are the perfect surface for painting and attaching giant jungle leaves with Make.Do screws.

Make.Do is one of our most favourite supplies at Smudge. Cardboard construction kits made here in Australia, and the screws are designed to go through cardboard with a bit of pressure. No hot glue, no tape, no waiting for things to dry. Artists can attach leaf shapes through the tubes and reposition them as they go, so the trees keep evolving all week.

Cut the leaves giant. Big floppy banana leaves, fingered fern fronds, thick palm spears, all from kraft paper, thick green cardstock, and brown corrugated card. Look at a jungle reference book or google "monstera leaf" for the most dramatic shapes. The bigger you cut them, the more impact they have on the trunks.

Hang vines from the ceiling on fishing line. Green crepe paper streamers from the party shop, torn fabric strips from old green sheets, faux ivy garlands. Hang them at varying lengths so the longer ones brush the kids' hair as they walk through and the shorter ones pool on the floor.

A backdrop is optional but lifts the whole installation. If you have a wall you can paint on, it transforms the immersive feel completely. If not, hang a roll of kraft paper or an old canvas drop sheet behind the trees and let the artists paint that across the week. Or skip the backdrop entirely and let the trees do all the work.

Last detail: hang a soft toy orangutan from one of the branches by his velcro hands. The first thing every artist does when they walk in is point at him.

Don't bring the paint out straight away. Give them a few minutes to wander, find the orangutan, duck under the vines.

Once everyone's settled, set out paint and brushes. Mix every shade of green you can find. Emerald, lime, olive, forest, sage. Add yellow-green and blue-green to keep the palette interesting. Use big brushes, foam rollers, and sponges in jar lids for that gnarled bark texture on the trunks. Birch is a beautiful neutral surface and dries fast, which means kids can keep adding layers without waiting around.

The cardboard tubes get their own treatment. Solid colour, layered patterns, bark textures, vine swirls, hidden insects painted into the bark. The Make.Do leaves go on as the painting dries, and the trees keep changing all week.

The most gorgeous thing about this installation is how it builds. Monday's painted trunks are bare. Tuesday the leaves start going up. By Wednesday there are a thousand details, and by Friday the studio is unrecognisable.

Smudge Tip: Photograph the installation every afternoon before you leave. The way it builds across the week is gorgeous for socials and for sharing back with families at the end.

• Scale this down to a single tree in a corner if your space is tight. One cardboard tube on a stand, a few leaves, a hanging vine. Still gives that walking-into-jungle feeling.
• Layer in real plant life. Pot plants from home, a bowl of moss, pinecones at the base of the trunks.
• Tuck small plastic frogs, beetles, or hidden tigers behind the leaves for the artists to find as they walk through.