How to ship a large painting with a truthful shocking end.

The Introduction, 36x54, oil on canvas

There comes a time for all artist when hand delivering your art across town evolves into shipping your art across the nation.  When this time comes do you know how you'll package it up?

The small works are easy to figure but what if you have larger paintings, like 36 x 54 inches, do you put it in a box and cross your fingers?  Build a bomb proof wooden pallet?  Take it apart and ship it in a tube?  There are a lot of different ways so I thought I would add to these ideas and show you how, and why, I ship my larger paintings.

What we are dealing with is: an oil painting on canvas that is stretched on wood bars and does not have a frame.  Knowing this we need to make sure the canvas does not get ripped, the wooden bars are not broken and everything stays nice and dry.  When shipping, size and weight are major concerns too.

This is a lot to account for.  So, here we go:

Supplies needed:
Cutting tools - scissors, box knife = 0
Sharpie permanent pen for labeling = 0
One large envelope = $1
Packing tape - one large roll = $5
Heavy duty packaging tape one small roll = $3
Duct Tape- optional = 0
2ml drop cloth = $3
Two cardboard boxes 45x36x6 = $32
Two polystyrene insulation panels =$25

The prices above are rounded and estimated but come out to about $67.  This is assuming I have the knives, pens, and tape dispensers on hand.  With these supplies, I can make a sturdy box that I am confident will house my painting safely until it arrives at its destination a week later on the other side of the United Sates.  Not a bad price to pay for this.  In my situation, the gallery would like to reuse the shipping container for getting the painting delivered to a buyer or back to me if it does not sell.  Keeping this in mind, I need to take some additional steps to make sure it gets repackaged correctly a month or so in the future.

First thing we need to do it make sure the painting is wired and ready to hang, has information marked on the back of the painting (my inventory #, painting title, dimensions, medium and a copy right sign followed by my name), make sure my business card is taped to back and tape an image of the painting along with same information as above but also include my name and contact information as well as the name and contact information for who is receiving the painting.

Wired and ready to hang      /       wrapped in plastic

This last piece of paper is useful for the gallery staff as they can grab it and take it to their desk for logging in the work.  It also may become my last bit of information for the carrier if by chance my packaging gets absolutely destroyed and lost.  This is no joke - I worked a few years at FedEx and daily we would have contents that had no packaging or information.  With no packaging and no information, they would sit at the ramp and be lost to all.  I mark everything with my name and list my address and phone number multiple times throughout the packaging process.  I want whatever remains of my painting back!!.

Second thing I do is wrap the painting in plastic.  This is a layer of protection from rubbing and serves to help keep the painting dry.  I can ship the painting from sunny Southern California but where it's going may be wet or places along the way where they change planes or trucks may be wet as well.  FedEx and UPS all have hubs where all the packages get downloaded from one container, divided up and repacked into other containers.  Believe me, the chances of something getting wet is huge.  The plastic cost $3 so it's a cheap investment.

The interior box made of foam            /         the painting inside the foam box             /        the outer shell box

Third step is the roughest.  I make a box out of polystyrene insulation.  It's a complicated name but the stuff itself is simple.  It's just white foam.  I buy this in the insulation aisle at Lowes and it comes in 4' x 8' sheets.  It's very light weight.  I build the box 1 inch bigger, in all dimensions, than my painting.  Example: painting is 36 x 54 x 1.5 so the box I building has inside dimensions of 37 x 55 x 2.5.  This gives me wiggle room to slide the painting in when complete.  The box is made by cutting the foam with a box knife (very easy to cut) and then taping together with light weight packaging tape.  When the insulation is cut it is very messy and you'll get white bits of foam everywhere.  A true nightmare for you and the receiving party.  To correct this mess in my studio I vacuum the floor -A LOT.  To correct this mess for the receiving party I cover every cut side with the light weight packaging tape.  If I make a cut- the edges get taped.  I use an entire roll of the packaging tape on one shipment.  It's tedious but keeps everyone happy in the long run.  I also make a hinged lid just for the receiving party and I write directions so they know where to open.  I don't want them to cut my painting and by guiding them I can make sure the box is usable again for return shipping at the end of the show.  At this point my painting is pretty well protected.  But there's more.

The fourth step is to make the outer shell.  Due to the size, this shell is made of two boxes.  The image above shows only the bottom half of the shell.  Here I'm using a 36"tall by 45" wide by 6"deep box.  This is a shipping box rated to 300lbs - it is different than a moving box purchased from U-Hall that is rated for far less.  Make sure and get a rated shipping box so any insurance you put on your shipment will have a chance of being approved.  I purchased my shipping boxes from the local UPS store.  The boxes I used here have openings on the 36" side - no good since I need at least 39" to fit the inner box within.  So I taped the box closed and then cut open the long side (45" side) so my white box will fit in.  The top half of the box - not shown- is made the same way.

A look inside the bottom half shell       /      the corner brace

Since I am putting a 39" box into a 45" box there is a bit of extra space to fill.  To fill this area, I make corner braces out of the same foam.  I make a brace for both ends of the box (top and bottom).  Here you can see the brace inside the bottom half of my outer shell.  These corner braces also add padding to my painting so it's a win - win.

white box in shell            /           details of instructions on inner box

 Here's a shot of the inner box inside the bottom half of the shell.  The detail picture shows some of my instructions for whom ever will be opening the box.  I have "Remove this piece first" written on the top corner brace piece.   See also that I have a black and white image of the painting too.  On this piece of paper there is the same info as before - name and contact info.  If this paper is removed I have also written my contact info in permanent pen underneath.  It may be over kill but it's cheap and quick insurance.  I should note that the corner braces have my name on them too.  Now I'm sounding crazy - huh?  My intention is that all of this stuff stays together for the return trip.  If one piece gets separated during the opening process and is found a day or so later then they know whose it is and can save it.  Marking everything with TOP and BOTTOM also helps them put the puzzle back together a month or so later (in this case the show will be up for 6 months).  That's a long time for a gallery employee to have to remember how one particular artist (me) packaged their painting.  I try and help as much as I can by labeling all.

Side fillers

To fill up some of the gaps between the interior box and exterior shell I made some half boxes out of the foam.  This will keep the painting centered in the shell.

sliding shell together    /    All taped and sound

After putting in the side fillers, I put the top corner brace piece on the top of the interior box and then cover all with the top half of the shell.  The top half of the shell overlaps the bottom half by maybe 12 inches.  Once they are pushed all the way down I again label everything and then start taping all sides with the heavy-duty packaging tape.  Use the thickest tape possible for this.  The interior box is only padding so you can get away with cheap tape inside but the strength of this package and what keeps everything together is the shell - so use good tape!   On the corners, I probably have 4 layers of tape going every direction.  In the middle, I use multiple vertical strips then I do a couple of passes all the way around the box.  The edges that were previously taped, get taped again with the thicker tape.  Lots of tape here.  Take note that I have written my name and contact information for both me and the gallery on the box.  Then you can see below I cover this with a white envelope and do it again.  Inside the envelope I include the painting information again, my consignment sheet for this painting and a copy of the artists agreement for the gallery.  This is like my invoice bag.  But, if it gets ripped off I still have my shipping information written on the box - so important this minor step.

Sheets for envelope and the finished box ready to go.

The box is now ready to ship.  Final dimensions were 45"wide x 6" deep x 58"tall - note that this is just about the max size that UPS will ship.  This package only weighed 25.5 pounds which is very light for its size.  The cost to ship this from California to South Carolina was $251.  If we include the $67 in supplies the total is over $300.  This is a major expense!  Just imagine shipping a show full of art - 12-15 pieces.  I shipped using UPS and the delivery time was 5 days, the box takes a good day to building from start to finish so make sure to leave a weeks' worth of time for this.  

I haven't shipped anything bigger so I don't know exactly how I would go about it in the future.  But knowing the limitations of UPS and having a game plan for packaging I could start calling around a month or so early to get an idea on what to do.  I would speculate that the delivery will be a bit longer than 5 days so plan accordingly.

One final note - be ready for the shipping price shock.  After purchasing the supplies and spending the time to produce the art, standing in line to ship your art out is not the time to say, "Oh crap, I can't do this!"  You have to do this; your art career depends on it!  Be ready for it.

Wishing you all the best,

Larry