"Silhouette" Wall Art

I recently made this wall art.  Obviously it's not hung; that's another post for another day since it's not done yet and I have something special in mind.  Anyway, I got this idea from Pintrest.  It doesn't look like I ever pinned this exact idea though because I thought I didn't have any interest in doing it.  But I thought of a spot of wall that needed something.  I don't know about you other moms out there, but I'm always the one behind the camera.  So I have very few images of me with my kids.  And I charish motherhood.  So I wanted an image that would highlight motherhood, not specifically me and my kids.  But since I know that it is me and my kid, it's even better.  So first, I had to have a baby (that's how long this project idea has been in my head.)  Check.  I've had this board laying around for some time, earmarked.  So I gave it a quick sand, stained it, and put a thin coat of Minwax Polycrylic. 

Then I set the camera to auto and had hubby click away.

We ended up with these two images that I liked pieces of.  I turned them b/w and turned the contrast up as high as it would go.  And printed both on my ink jet printer (then had to go buy another cartridge of course.)

I copied/drew the outline of the entire image onto a transparency using a sharpie and some alcohol on a q-tip as my eraser.  Then, on another transparency, I copied/drew the shadows that I wanted.  I'm not at all great at drawing.  I'd never done a study of shadows and highlights like this - I don't even know what to call it.  So it was tricky.  It's probably not quite right, but I enjoyed the challenge, learning something new.  Then I had to put the two layers together and make adjustments so they would match up the way they should.  (To make your life easier, just do a silhouette.)  Then I rigged up an overhead projector of sorts using a chair, barstool, pane of glass, flashlight, and lots of tape.  Since I had to align the highlight and shadow layers, I had to add T-shaped guide lines to help.  And once you get started, DON'T. TOUCH. ANYTHING.  One bump could have you starting over if you're doing the two layers... yeah, I did that.  The problem I ran into was when I tried to change transparencies...

 And since everything STILL didn't line up exactly, I put the blown up images in the window and again made adjustments using my printout as a reference.

Then I goosed the back of the highlight image with spray adhesive.  Lined it up on my board and smoothed it out.

 Then I cut away the image with an exacto knife and peeled off the excess.  If you're doing just a single layered silhouette, I think it would be cool to peel off the outside and have the image be the wood grain.  But I peeled off the middle...

 ... and spray painted it white.  Then repeat the process (if you're slightly crazy) with the shadow layer and paint it gray.  Thankfully, the woodgrain and white paint was enough contrast that I was able to see it through the sketch paper.  That helped me line up my shadow layer.  I had a problem with the sketch paper not sticking.  So for the second layer, I sprayed the paper even heavier with adhesive and smoothed it out even more firmly.  That time it stuck too well, and I paid the price.  It was a mess trying to get all of the paper peeled away after painting the gray.  I had to cut around the image again to help keep my paint from peeling off with the paper, and still some of the gray came off.  I had wet and scrub the paper off, then do touch ups.  In real life, they're obvious.  But I'm still happy with how it turned out.  Anyway, after all that, I sanded, lightly and painted a coat of polycrylic.  And I love it.