graphic creation

This was supposed to post yesterday, but did not for some reason. Updated/edited this morning.

Yesterday I started creation on a number of different components. First, I began researching techniques for creating space-scenes with spray paint. Have you ever seen those guys making space posters on the street or at festivals? They use paint, some different sized cylinders, and a newspaper to create a scene with planets/moons/sun in space with a galaxy or nebula and stars and all. My plan is to utilize this technique for the outer-space background I envision for the section of the US history piece in which I'm attempting to portray the social significance of the Space Race and how it relates to other dominant components of the 1960's. After watching multiple video tutorials and doing some reading, I gave it a go. My first attempt came out pretty well! There are certainly things that I need to straighten out, but now I know what I have to do differently so I am very happy with the results. Most of the problems came from the set-up, meaning next time i need to do it in a less windy area, with a flatter or rigid surface underneath, and gloves so that I can use the proper star-method rather than the make-shift method that i resorted to upon realizing I had no gloves. I do not have a picture as of now, and am out of town for the weekend, but will upload one as soon as i return.

Next, I practiced using the stencil burner (heated Xacto blade) on acetate by carving a two-layered stencil of Obama's face. I even got to test the temporary spray adhesive I purchased, keeping the stencil's small pieces flat/pressed to the surface to avoid fuzzy lines. This stencil turned out very well, not perfectly, but well enough that I believe I can perfect Nixon and Reagan for the final piece.
Here is a picture:

After this trial, I scaled the Nixon and Reagan stencils to the proper size for the boards that they are going on. I must admit, the enormous heads of Nixon and Reagan printed across 2 pages each are rather intimidating to me and my family on my living room table...

I also created the graphic for one color separation of the background for the 1950's, which will be silk screened. It is half of the checkerboard-like design described in previous posts. The only difference from before is that the communist hammer and sickle is ON the marlboro packaging, so that the two of them are only half of the checkering. I thought this added another dimension to the statement it is making, by portraying the way in which McCarthyism was almost 'marketed'/'sold' to the public, as well as the way it became an irreversible, never-ending, damaging plague in parallel ways to an addiction to nicotine.
This is the RED portion of the graphic: (one piece of a larger image i have, but you get the idea)

My idea for the empty spaces is to have a finger over a womans lips in reference to both the lack of communication/openness acceptable in 1950's culture regarding anything (almost everything outside of a very narrow/specific stereotype) considered 'taboo'.