I often mention ACEO in my posts, and so to clarify, this refers to a formatted size of artwork.

ACEO, which stands for Art Cards, Editions and originals, are tiny paintings that measure just 2.5" x 3.5” or 64 mm × 89 mm which is the size of a football or trading card and they are highly collectable. This reference to their size is important and whilst the material that ACEOs are made of can vary, the size must be accurate.

Artist trading cards (ATCs) is a conceptual art project initiated by the Swiss artist M. Vänçi Stirnemann in 1997. He called it a ‘Collaborative Cultural Performance’. Art in this formatted size has been traded around the world, it is made, swapped, sold and collected, enabling collectors to build up a collection of miniature artworks they love which are small and manageable in size, much like a stamp collection it can be kept in albums or wall-mounted as art, following along the lines of modern trading cards (hockey cards, playing cards or baseball cards).

As for materials, there are no particular rules to follow, only the size restricts you! Crafters and art enthusiasts like to work within this limited size format and often ‘art cards’ and ‘aceos’ are crafted as collage, sometimes decorating and restyling old playing cards using both 2d and 3d materials.

I chose to predominantly work with stamps on my ACEO size art as their scale fits perfectly within the size frame and up-cycling them in this way gets them out on show! I use watercolour paper as a base and apply oil and watercolour paint to create the effect, I have been known to embroider stitches on to the design and create backgrounds using papers, I have so many ideas to explore and this little style of art gives opportunity to do so!

If you choose to have a go yourself in creating aceo size art do let me know how you get on!

(you might ask ...where can I buy ACEO frames?.. and so I have listed frames to mount aceo your artwork in my shop)