Mmmmm, spaghetti squash.

This weekend was quite productive!

I ended up giving myself a crash-course in limited edition ACEOs (Art Cards Editions & Originals). For those who aren't familiar with them, they started out as Art Trading Cards, or ATCs. Artists and fans of artists could collect them and trade them. Somewhere along the lines ACEOs came in, and I believe the reason was that they could be produced without being meant soley for trade. An ACEO is a piece of art (an original or limited edition print from an original) that measures 2.5" x 3.5." So they are quite small, miniature pieces of art. Since they are small, they can usually be produced in a short amount of time and thus sold for less than a big original painting. If you're a big fan of an artist but can't afford one of their original works, you could probably afford one of their ACEOs. If you have several favorite pieces and they offer limited edition ACEOs of those, and the prices are right, you could possibly even have one of each.

I created ACEOs this weekend from 3 of my butterflies and hope to add the luna moth to the series as well. I've listed them in my etsy store:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23259325
Swallowtail Summer

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23216512
Swallowtail Caterpillar

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23342334
Baltimore Checkerspot

One thing I learned rather quickly is that my handwriting is completely unacceptable for this kind of thing. Apparently if people really do want to collect your work, they want to know a lot about it. Which makes sense. So in my research I discovered that the back of an ACEO should include such information as:
The title
The artist's full name
The artist's contact info
The artist's signature
The number of the print, if applicable
And possibly the location where the ACEO was created.

That's a lot to write, and a lot for some poor soul to have to read with my scribble. I ended up buying some acid-free paper (from an art store I found out is only 2 miles away, which is a the perfect distance to walk and wear out my energetic dog!) and then created a form to mount to the back of the card. I left a space for my signature and the number, so those are still done by hand, but the rest just had to be typed. There was no way around it. My handwriting isn't even the "so messy it's kind of cool in a stylized kind of way" messy.


And now, must get back to my spaghetti squash.... MMmmmmmmmmm. Hell yeah.