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| Gloss Print ACEO Art Cards drying after being pasted onto the passepartout on my studio table |
My ACEO project has been a hugely steep learning curve. It's not that long since I first heard about these little 2.5 x 3.5 inch paintings and caught the bug. I've produced heaps of them. There is a lovely set of painted ones that I have posted here http://paintboxcafe.blogspot.gr/p/my-first-aceos.html
Those ones were created using a digital print taken from one of my original works which you can see on my websites:
www.aegeanlight.co.uk
and
www.anotherlight.co.uk
and painting over them. The print is effectively the underpainting and each one is a new painting in its own right not just a print with a few brush strokes added for enhancement.These artworks are all individual pieces with a fresh interpretation and development of the original painting or digital artwork on which they were based. I'll be blogging on each one with a little background and story to it as I go.
I've also made a great batch of gloss print reproductions of my work in ACEO format - that means they are each only 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I've aimed to make a really gorgeous and luxurious little product. I chose this fabulous black Passepartout Mat Board, the sort that is usually used as a surround mount for framing, fantastic quality. We have a couple of good framers in our town and one of them offered to cut the pieces for me. Can't wait to go back to show her the results.
I edged each piece with permanent black ink and I edged the prints themselves too. All this edging of both the card and the print or painted canvas piece as well is time consuming in a sense but it really improves the look. I didn't count the time doing this on the whole as I just sat in a lovely cafe in the port in Ermoupoli for a peachy hour or so with my pen and a pile of mat cards and prints. Soothing work. I absolutely love this card, love handling it - sounds mad I know but I know I am not the only person in the world who walks into a good stationery store and sighs with joy!
The gloss prints are really vivid and sharp printed on excellent quality photo paper. These are just stuck to cards, a little certificate I have designed is pasted to the back and signed and dated. Each one clearly indicates what sort of ACEO Miniature it is. These will sell at £5 each. I'm very proud of them, they look so juicy and wantable!
The Paint over Print Originals - I have coined that name, to be shortened to PoP Originals as a convenient way to describe these pieces which I think have a valid claim to be a style of their own - have me seriously excited. When you hold them in your hand you will see them as paintings. They vary a bit, some are complete repaints with the underlying print gone from view. Others take advantage of the print more and I've gone a different route, using the mellow surface of the printed silk canvas and working into only parts of it in paint to achieve a really 3D affect and stunning jewel-like colours.
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| Northern Lights Fox, a PoP (Paint over Print) Original based on a detail of my painting Northern Lights. If you go and look at the original painting you will get an idea of the relationship between the original and the PoP ACEO. |
The opportunities this process presents are myriad and I am raring to produce more and develop the possibilities. For customers they will provide and affordable way to own a real painting. I'm pitching these first ones at £40 each.
Best of all is that I am painting again. There are a small set of originals in the making. With all that has happened in the last year or so it was feeling like I never would get back to it. I'm inspired, feeling confident with my brushes and FULL of ideas to take this further.
