Technique tests: Cling film, masking fluid & trees

I wanted a dark forest, I didn't want to have to hand paint every tree.
I've not played around with cling film much but I figured this would be a good chance to use it, to get some random patterns in the background that could represent the smaller forest branches. I am however pretty controlling of my art, something that watercolour doesn't like, I want to know exactly what outcome I'll get from a technique so below are my cling film tests, hopefully you can read my hand writing:

The basics of them are the same, put watercolour down and whilst it's still wet put cling film on top, wait for it to dry.
The main things I've learned from this are:
If the paint's too thick it will dry shiny (haven't found an answer to this.)
If I move it about on the paper too much it drags the watercolour around leaving arias bare or too strong which tends to go into the cracks in the pattern, filling them up.
And if I want dark shapes without the arias between them being tainted by the colour too much then I need to make sure the bubbles in the cling film stick out from the paper quite a bit. It doesn't matter how big the bubbles are horizontally (though that will give smaller shapes) but that they stick out vertically.....Not sure if it's caused by vacuum or just having sharper edges.

Masking fluid has always been a bit problematic for me, ripping up everything underneath, and since I planned to use it a lot in this painting I figured I should do some research (everything above the test on the left.) I also did some tests of my own, first just seeing the different effects I could get (left) and then trying to put it down and lift it back up without taking off the watercolour underneath (right.)
So, things I learned:
Using a pen nib (like those on dipping pens or quills) gives nice thin even lines though you do have to peel the dried masking fluid off now and then.
Adding the masking fluid into wet watercolour gives some pretty cool results, though it's harder to remove.
And to avoid the masking fluid taking off the colour underneath use a brush and be as delicate as you can, try not to even touch the paper with the brush, only the masking fluid on it, or drag around a puddle of masking fluid. also use and old brush and coat it in soap before adding the masking fluid to help get the stuff off again.

I worked on the tree ideas at the same time as the other tests, mostly realising I needed to do the others when the trees went wrong. Most of these are just playing about with different colours and working out if I wanted the trees darker or lighter than the background.
I'm going to go with the colours of the bottom one but when I added more colour to the trees it was too watery and ran off to the edges, I want something more similar to the one on the left above.