ORIGINAL HAND CREATED ART. DON'T BE AFRAID OF COLOR❣️

What is an ACEO?

JUNE 2026

Shelley Aliaga

6/23/20262 min read

I have heard of ACEOs. But, like my octogenarian father, confused them with another unusual type of art ... the NFT, non-fungible token. ACEO stands for Art Cards, Editions, Originals. This is art, commonly sized to 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. The idea behind it is to make original art the size of trading cards, and affordable to everyone. Obviously, that means everyone can have original art, a great idea for all artists looking to expand their public interactions.

When I heard about it, I researched it. This is all of LAST WEEK! But I was so excited, because the ACEOs are sold a lot on eBay.com. That means what you get for each painting can be whatever the collectors/bidders want. The price can go for under $5, or close to $40. The reason I was excited was that I could create something relatively quickly, and let's be honest, I can do quick. Murals made me very fast.

In fact, I create art so prolifically, that making art smaller makes sense. I have 10s of sketchbooks with 30 pages each FILLED with original art. A lot of my art is posted on FineArtAmerica.com . So I got to creating these small jewels right away. The excitement hasn't waned.

As I thought about what I wanted to create, my favorite style of illustration is to spray a page with water, and lay down a deep color, or darker color than what I intend to paint, in watercolor, gouache or acrylic. I should back up, I take a colored pencil and mark out the paper into 9 rectangles of the appropriate size, 2.5x3.5". Then I color wash the whole paper. When that's dry, I go in and paint it all with gouache. My first one is bright pastels. By the third, the one I am working on now, I narrowed my palette to blues and reds, including light blue and shades of pink. I, also, limited my subject to just roses. The third collection is called Roses Environments. I put roses in different situations, in a bouquet, in a vase, hanging upside down over flames. Just being creative. It is really fun, and sparks my imagination daily.

You may be wondering what to do with these tiny works of art. The main idea behind the creation of them, originally, was to trade them. Another benefit of buying them is to create a collection, or swap them, either as an artist, or between collectors. Once you have them, you may just want to display them. I am imagining a collection in rows against a background of white, framed. But they would also look adorable in small frames. The frames could be all white, or play with a collection of different types, or colors, of frames.

So if you are interested in seeing more, just click the "ACEO" link in Navigation, or here, and stay tuned for more!

Thanks for following along on my art journey