Rolling tubes and Ethafoam, I love you—not as much as casters, but I love you.

I think this may be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Giant rolling tubes from Ashely Distributors, along with some Ethafoam scraps for buffering. Sheet plastic for wrapping, some tape and I'm good. Materials approximately $120. Out of curiosity I asked how much it would cost to have a pro pack it, and got a rough estimate that it would take a seasoned art handler about an hour to pack it, plus the administrative fee. So I figured it would take me twice as long to pack it at my place, but the guy corrected me and suggested that it might take me 3 hours. I assume this will include untretching the canvas. I also learned that glassine, the archival wonder material is not so archival when it comes to protecting acrylic paintings. Over time, like say, during the transportation of work across states like Texas and Oklahoma in the summertime, glassine may stick to the acrylic paint causing the acrylic paint to peel away when the glassine is removed. Nice. Apparently this is true of kraft paper as well. Hence the plastic sheeting.

The beautiful thing about this method of S&P is that (1) It's relatively inexpensive (2) It's flexible for all sizes of canvas (3) The process will be the same no matter what size canvas or paper (4) I can estimate shipping and packing easily and concisely 5) All my materials come from the same place, and 6) I can carry it myself.

Of course, this is all a relatively moot point since I have sworn off big painting and am concentrating on the small works.