Wood workers / Arty Types

I was thinking of making some wall art. about 2m x 1m based on a Banksy image.

It will be made of cleaned pallet wood, probably stained for the person, so darker like the original, rather than lighter as shown in the mock up.
The image will be a bit more pixelated as the pallet planks mostly define the edges of the silhouette but with a bit of judicious burning on the ends of planks I can smooth that a bit.
The flowers will be in a vase mounted onto the picture, probably with a small light behind them.
Wood will be planed and sanded to remove slinters but retain texture. Also, this will ensure planks are the same width as required.

I was planning on screwing a frame to the wall, mounting the planks on a thin panel and then using French Cleats to hang it.

Sound feasible?
What have I missed?

Sounds fun.

I think the only thing is that it’ll be hard to pick out enough detail in mainly the shadows on his arm for it to look decent. Other areas are quite detailed too and pretty important imho

In your mock-up, for me, I don’t think there is quite enough detail to recreate the picture properly.

Too little detail and it might get lost a bit?

I wonder if you could combine a little pyrography here and there to bring out detail in areas where it’s otherwise difficult to get with the wood itself? Blending it into the stained timber.

French cleats would work on the bigger pieces but might be a faff on smaller sections. I’d get a headless pinner and wang some of them in.

Also, when you get your timber, it might be good to put it in the room for a couple of weeks or so to acclimatise and reduce the chance of shrinkage widening gaps and that.

Photos of progress please.

“Anyone bored enough to watch me make a Banksy?”

Yep, we probably are.

Pin all the planks to a board and French cleat the board rather than the individual planks.

For the detail, I plan to cheat and ‘enhance’ the wood grain with either fire or filler

Drying wood will be a good idea right now. I will store it in the sauna for a week or so.

What about using all full boards and making the artwork out of nails like they used to do a lot of in the Seventies?

Or nails and string.