I have to use these colors - but I don't like them - plz help

[Marcus Lim]

Hi Ant,

Originally Posted by Ant Carlos

... and shipped it still wet (see in the attached photos the system of packing I had to use to avoid the front of the canvas from touching in any part of the pack)...

I'm curious with the 3rd pic you showed about your packing process. There seems to be a layer of opaque plastic on top of the painting - the fragmented look of the painting with the plastic layer reminded me of bubble wrap. Is that bubble wrap?

If it is, how do you prevent it from smudging, if the painting is still wet? I hope you can enlighten me on your packing process, because i tend to send it after my paintings are more or less dried on the surface. It'll certainly be helpful especially if i meet tight datelines like you do!

[Ant Carlos]

Hi Marcus!

That layer is a hard acrylic board. I always use a thin acrylic board inside protecting the front of my paintings, to avoid particles of UPS (which I also use to protect the work, like many companies do when they ship their products) from sticking to the wet (or semi-wet) paint in the moment of the "unpacking process". You have to think in advance. When your client unpacks it, he will not know technically how to procede, so it's up to you to make it simple and safe for him. Small particles of UPS are really a pain, and sticky paint seems to atract it like sugar to flies. In the first picture of that packing in a previous post you see 2 pieces of wood attached to the painting (stretched canvas, unframed). Since it was shipped unframed, I did not have to worry about it's sides, so I used 6 small screws (3 each side) to fix the 2 pieces of wood in the longer sides of the canvas. That way I constructed a kind of "cassis" to support the surrounding protection. This structure was only to create an empty space between the wet surface and the materials used for packing. I used thick pieces of UPS (5cm) all around. Knowing about the danger of the small particles, I covered all the UPS pieces with a thin plastic (wrap). The front was protected with the acrylic board, between the UPS and the surface of the canvas (plus the "empty space", of course). I found that it doesn't matter how much you roll the UPS with the wrap plastic, the clients always destroy them when unpacking, so the acrylic board was the best solution to minimize the problem. You can stick a warning somewhere inside the pack, saying "at this point you must keep this side up and cut all the tapes, remove all the UPS and pull the picture UP. Keep it's face down untill you move it away from the remainings of the packing" ( see the picture attached bellow). Well this is for when I ship unframed works. Framed ones require an extra protection and I'll send some pictures showing you how I packed this painting of this topic in a new post.

Ant

[Ant Carlos]

First, here you have a photo of the framed picture. Because of the modern approach of this painting with the (arghss) vibrant blue-green-yellow colors I chose a clean style frame. My client had sent me some photos of the place where it was going to be hung (I attached one here too), so the light yellow color of the frame is supposed to match perfectly. Well, maybe If I had chosen white it would give more contrast, but matte white is always dangerous, you know. The light yellow did it. The 3rd photo is a close-up of the painting.

[Ant Carlos]

Image 1- You see I used 4 pieces of foam to protect the frame. It's 3cm thick so I believed it also could work to keep the acrylic board away from the sticky surface (front of the canvas). The acrylic is already there, in the bottom, with a 3cm UPS (the picture is face-down in the photo) and I put it all together with some cotton strings first.

Image 2- I attached the 5cm-thick UPS plate on top and sealed everything with adhesive tape (I used some smashed paper to fill the empty spaces in the corners). Here is where I stuck a warning saying that the person who was unpacking should keep it in that position from that point onward and cut all the tapes in order to remove the picture, pulling up , carefully, and take it away from the remaining of UPS and foams.

Image 3- I used some bubble wrap, more to avoid water than any other thing (it

[Marcus Lim]

Hi Ant,
Thanks for the lesson on packaging artworks. It certainly does add value to our customer's purchases, knowing that their artworks receive first-class treatment like how you do it for your clients!

Thanks again for the enlightenment!

marcus