Here are 2 carved cedar signs I recently made for a customer, I first gave 2 coats of shellac to the bare wood to ensure the paint would not soak into the cedar grain. I then proceeded to carve the signs, after 2 coats of primer followed by 2 coats of white paint, finally used the random orbital sander with 220 grit paper.
The signs are 19″ wide x 11″ tall