ATCs and ACEOs

Artist Trading Cards and Art Card Editions and Originals can be a quick and easy project.  You can use them to try out a technique before doing a larger work, as something small and compact you can share with friends, etc.  There are very few restrictions to keep in mind.

Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) should be given or traded, not sold.  ACEOs can be sold.

Both should be reasonably flat, and are always 2.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall, so that they fit into standard trading card sleeves. They are often traded by mail, and the flatness also helps keep this easy.

They can be made in any media that fit these rules: paper, paint, metal, fabric, etc.  The back of the card usually includes the artist's name, email, year the card was made, the number (if the card is part of a series), and possibly a title or theme. 

How to Start a Project

We all get creatively stuck sometimes.  When you're looking for your next project idea, here's a little help on getting started.  You can use a sort of prompt to give you somewhere to work from.

1 - MEDIA: You can decide first on what media you want to use, which can give you a reason to pick up something you haven't used for a while, or haven't tried before. 

2 -THEME:  You can come up with a theme, or subject matter, that you want to work from.  Try looking through books.  Not just art books, but any books - poems, nature, technology, etc. 

3 - COLOUR:  Either before you have a theme, or after, you can play with colours to help you choose your palette.  Sometimes just knowing the colours you want to use will help you get an idea for subject matter.  Other times you'll have a theme in mind, and then you can play with colours that that theme makes you think of.

Colour pages work well for me.  You can create one speaking to a colour palette you already have in mind, or choose adjective words and make colour pages based on what that word makes you think of.  Your colour pages can be snips from magazines, paint, scrapbook papers, ribbon, drawings, etc. as pleases you.

Here's examples of my colour pages based on adjectives.  The left one is "spicy", and the right is "sweet".