stencil

use a thin acetate. that way you can use your pattern for about a hundred time. they are hundreds of youtube videos about stenciling. it's a really fun and useful hobby.

You can make a stencil out of anything that will keep the paint off the areas of the picture you want to keep unpainted. The earliest 'stencils' were probably just the human hand! (See the picture below). The stencil material can be anything which will stand up to the paint medium and is strong enough not to break up too easily yet flexible enough to lie flat against the surface of the paper or object being stencilled. Stiff paper or card often work well. More durable stencils are made of plastic or metal. When designing a stencil, remember that all the masked areas must be connected. This is especially important if you are including lettering in your design. Letters like A, B, D, O, P, Q, R and many of the lower case letters need to have bridges to support the inner, enclosed areas. Silk screen printing is a stencilling method which uses a tightly stretched piece of a thin material through which the paint can be squeezed. The areas to be left free of paint are masked out with either paper stuck to the screen or any material, such as a lacquer, which will not be dissolved by the paint medium. Silk screens are often prepared photographically and can print quite fine detail. To cut the stencil, a sharp craft knife is probably best, though scissors can also be used for bold designs. The stencil is usually printed by spraying or dabbing paint through the holes in the stencil. For this you will need either cans of spray paint or a stiff bristled brush of some kind (for small designs, a toothbrush with even bristles is quite useful). Paint can also be applied with a conventional brush or a roller. The paint should be quite thick so as to avoid it spreading under the edges of the stencil and spoiling the design. A silk screen stencil is printed by squeezing the ink through the cloth with a rubber blade that is made to fit the width of the frame. Although stencilling is something that is very easy, pleasurable and satisfying that even children can do, it is capable of some very fine and sophisticated effects. In the days before colour printing, when illustrations were often hand coloured, many different stencils - one for each colour - were sometimes used for a single illustration to make the result quicker and more accurate. Today, many artists use stencils to build up amazing effects using cans of spray paint and airbrushes.

Do you intend to reuse the stencil or is it an one-off item which you will dispose once you are done? For the latter, you can try using cardboard.

try to use transparent acetate and spray paint, if you don't want to use spray paint the best alternative is sponge just to swipe it just pat it to your stencil image.