How to pack and ship your precious ...
Moving overseas is a life-altering decision and it needs a lot of pre-planning and mind settlement. The same goes for artworks.
I would like to put artworks in the fragile category as they have a surface that needs to be protected and one blow, scrape, or rub-off is enough to ruin the whole painting. It is even important to take care of the surface if frames and shadow boxes are involved. Many would not agree to this as frames are considered as protection to paintings or canvases but that only holds true as long as the frame could take care of itself because we don't want the hard surface blowing off the painting with all the bending and dents.
For more deets on the best affordable packaging material, real-time experiences, and challenges while packing artwork lets walk through the dots below:
Packaging materials: Stock on bubble wraps, packaging paper, cling wrap, and shipping tape. I would not suggest corner protection materials as bubble wrap works the same or even better. Even foam sheets come handy if glass surface frames and shadow boxes are involved.
Bundle packing: Try packing the paintings of the same size as bundles with paint surface facing outside. It not only saves space and minimizes usage of packing materials but also adds extra support especially to canvases.
Wrapping Process: Pick the pile of wrapping papers and cover the whole body of paintings, frames, shadow boxes by taping around. Use more than one layer of packaging paper if needed. Keep in mind, the paper and bubble wraps take space so if you have restricted space, focus more on bundling and less on bubble wrap.
Corners: Taking care of corners is important to keep the artwork from collapsing or looking old. Cardboard corners or bubble wrap both work good but I prefer bubble wrap as it is shock-absorbing, runs low on cost, and gets the job done!
Leave some space for air: Don't forget to poke a hole in packaging for air to exchange. Make sure the vent is neither too big nor too tiny. A hole punch size, few of them, would do. This will help in keeping the surface of painting fresh and keep away the strong smell of solvents.
Part 2 coming soon... stay tuned!