ACEOs & Making a little progress

Yippee! I am making a little progress. I uploaded photos of my artwork which will be added to the Cloudcroft Art Society Website.
And, I got my check in the mail to cover my dues for CAS 2009 along with the website. It's great to scratch something off the list. This business of art keeps us from making art but has to be done if we want to generate any financial benefits from our efforts.
Now, about ACEOs. It's an acronym for Art Cards, Editions and Originals. There is a great article about them here that you might consider reading. Originally, the concept started as artist trading cards(ATCs). Artists who couldn't afford to make investments in art by their fellow artists exchanged small pieces of artwork among themselves. There was no money or payments involved, simply trading of artwork. That has evolved into the more recent ACEO movement. The only restriction on ACEO's is that they must be in the same size format: 3.5"x2.5" which is the size of a baseball trading card. They can be collected and displayed in a variety of ways. They are produced in all forms of media and supports. In fact, they have become so popular, you can buy blank ones ready to go in a number of different types of papers and other supports. If you have trouble cutting a straight line - like I do - the precut varieties are a godsend.
The little cards make great gifts and are a wonderful way to collect some fabulous artwork from artists who participate and whose work might be otherwise unaffordable to the collector.
I like to work on ACEOs while I am "watching" TV in the evenings with my DH. It gives me a chance to try out techniques in a small format, experiment with art that I might not want to do on a larger scale and work on thumbnail ideas for future compositions. eBay is an excellent venue for selling and buying the little cards and I enjoy perusing the listings there. The artwork at the beginning of this and my previous post are both ACEOs that I will be listing for sale on eBay.
Last month, I had to deal with another eBay user stealing one of my ACEO's and posting it for sale as if it were his own. The really bizarre thing about it was that the other user posted the card as an original and listed it 3 consecutive times. Duh! If the person who bought my card hadn't brought it to my attention, I probably would have been totally unaware of it happening. In a future blog, I will write about things I could have done to prevent it from happening in the first place and the hoops I had to jump through to get the problem resolved. BTW, that seller is no longer a member of eBay...
Tomorrow I will start on my first attempt at a very simple collage ala Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson. I love, love, love her work. She has been very kind and generous in sharing information with me via email and has a wonderful article in which she explains her methods in the Nov/Dec 08 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine. I'm starting with a very pared down version of an ice cream cone. I will share photos of the progression with you - success or failure!
All the best -