Shipping Art Internationally

When I first began selling art on the internet in 2005 I was a novice. Hundreds of packages later I think I might qualify as an expert. I stock bubble wrap in rolls, have had to install shelving in my garage to store shipping cartons, and I can estimate the weight of any package under ten pounds pretty accurately by just lifting it.

Many of my recent sales have been international. I've sold three to clients in Japan just this month, when I typically will have 4-5 international sales per year. If you're going to ship art out of the United States you need to know that each country has its own specific rules regarding imports. Some countries charge an additional tax on foreign goods and the buyer should be aware of this. YOU need to be aware of this too in case they question you about it later.

The U.S. Post Office has a lot of information about shipping internationally on their website here.

I only ship art so I am going to talk about that specifically. Protecting your art is important and it has to go even farther than it normally would so be sure to use enough bubble wrap to cushion it. Bubble wrap is lightweight so it will keep your shipping costs, which are based on weight, lower than if you use packing peanuts or paper. Corrugated cartons are heavy. Anything that adds weight to your package drives up the shipping cost. I have found that smaller Amazon boxes are tough yet lightweight so I save them to re-use when I ship small paintings. I order a lot of books and electronics form Amazon so I always have a supply of these on hand. The United States Post Office will also mail you free shipping cartons (see link here) if you use their Priority Mail service. I highly recommend using them for most international shipments, as they are less expensive than FedEx and UPS. I don't ship larger paintings overseas so this may not be true if you are mailing a heavy frame or a bigger piece. I limit my international shipments to anything I can fit into an 18" x 24" x 4" box, because I stock that box size and it's the largest size you can ship before the price escalates.

International shipping with the USPS requires the use of a shipping envelope for your customs forms,  Form 2976E, which can also be acquired for free from the USPS. Print your customs forms on line at the USPS site or using Paypal. You will get four copies. Cut the sheet in half, sign three of the copies and keep the fourth.

I like to use Paypal because it helps me track expenses for my business and the tracking information is automatically sent to the buyer. Here is a link to a page where you can print a PayPal label through Pitney-Bowes for any package if you have a PayPal account. It's nice because you don't share any credit card information and it costs you nothing. 

You can't schedule a normal mail pick up for International shipments as I routinely do for U.S. Priority Mail shipments. You have to hand the package directly to a postal worker, so it usually requires an additional trip to the post office. But I think the benefits of shipping to other countries outweigh the few additional steps you have to make in the shipping process. Who knows-- maybe your work will become highly sought after in another country and they'll invite you over to give a seminar. We can hope! :) 

Beach Boys and Girls

Nothing says summer to me more than children playing on the beach. There is something so engaging about the way they mold and scoop and form the grains of sand. These two paintings were commissioned by the father of the children and presented to their mother as a surprise! Dad directed me to some Facebook photos and I created the small impressionistic pieces, keeping in mind they would hang together.

6" x 6" oil on Gessoboard ™

Cottages Paintings

When I stayed at Lakeside this year I did two cottage paintings en plein air. I have painted quite a few cottages over the past few years, several as commissions. I kept them small this year as the days were warm and I didn't want to stand in the sun any longer than necessary.

Shown here is the Peach Cottage, on Fourth Street and a blue cottage at the end of Kenton Row, with a nice view of the lake from its northern windows.

The trick to making a successful composition with a building is to be keenly aware of how the eye enters the painting and where you want the center of interest to be. In the first painting the flowers are the draw and all the planes of the garage 'point' toward  the flowers. The stairs and window are incidental but the color of the house itself will not be ignored so I made sure I modified the peach with a lot of green. I painted this on a gray day so there isn't a lot of contrast between light and shadow. The values are a lower key and the scene is actually quite muted,

The Peach House

10"x8"

 In direct contrast to the painting above this one was painted in strong afternoon sunlight. The shadows are dark and the light is warm. A path (really -- it was right there!) leads us into the painting and the shrubs drive us up to the building where the strong contrasts hold the eye. The flag and doorway become the focus and from there we are (I hope anyway) encouraged to explore the rest of the landscaping.

The challenge with painting landscapes this small is always a question of what to omit. I think the more I leave out the better I like it. Up close the objects are just abstract forms but when they are placed together in an orderly manner they read as a house and a nicely landscaped lot. Red blobs are pots only because we believe them to be, not because they were painted with a great deal of accuracy.

That's a lake freighter in the background, along with a few boats. But we only know this because the horizon reads as water.

The End of Kenton Row

6"x6"

Living the Good Life or Where to Dine at Lakeside

When I'm invited to stay with people and the community is as welcoming as the one at Lakeside is, I develop an appreciation for what it means to be an artist, and more particularly, a plein air artist. When the weather cooperates and the skies are sunny and blue, and the passersby are warm and cheerful the paintings come easily. Sloopy's is a little sports cafe at the corner of Maple and Second Street and they serve awesome pizza. I parked myself on a bench in front of the restaurant Saturday morning and painted a small slice of life painting.

Sloopy's Sports Cafe

8" x 10"

This small piece was painted in just under an hour as I gazed through the foliage at the picturesque umbrellas behind the beachfront cafe. As I was finishing up a group of people sat in the chairs and I couldn't resist adding a little bit of 'life' to the painting.

Lakeside Lunch

6" x 6"

SOLD

A Plein Air Weekend

I spent a long weekend at the annual Lakeside Wooden Boat Show and Plein Air Festival. After a week of 100 degree heat the temperatures fell on Friday and I was wearing a jacket when I arrived at the gate Friday morning. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds in the afternoon and the jacket came off. Our final day was a breezy but warm Sunday, when the artists were invited to participate in a wet paint sale at the the park.

Jim White and I had decided we would kill some time by drawing people for free prior to the art sale, so we set up our easels and had some fun. Most of our clients were people who worked for Lakeside or children, but we didn't mind. The wind nearly took my paper with it a few times, yet every one seemed happy with their drawings. At least the price was right!

Here's Jim, doing his Sargent imitation.

Here's another friend of mine, Richard Maxfield, who's trying to sell some paintings. Or maybe he's just trying to explain his own unique creative process to them.

After the sale a friend and I took a dip in Lake Erie and THAT was extremely refreshing after being outside in the warm July sun all afternoon.

Here's a picture of my favorite subject from the weekend. I stayed with a great family and I asked one of the boys to pose with his rod and reel at dusk. I thought he would just stand on the dock and toss the line in once in awhile. Instead, he used real worms and he had a bite within minutes. It became an exercise in futility to paint him. The fish, a sheephead, according to my model, was reeled in after a few minutes of drama and it was a big, fat one! Unfortunately, the line broke and the fish swam away with the hook, which resulted in an interesting story about the actual size of the fish when he told his cousin about it later that night. It was getting dark so I took a few pictures, roughed the sketch in and finished it in the morning.

The Fishing Story

16" x 16"

SOLD