How to deal with wet paintings

It's Tippy Tuesday! A collection of tips I've gained through experience or stolen learned from other artists.

Call me crazy, but I don't like to get covered in paint. Especially oils, which are filled with all sorts of nasty, toxic ingredients.

Two tricks I picked up somewhere have made it a lot easier to deal with wet paintings:

1. If you paint on panels, first tape them (tape loops on the back) onto a piece of cardboard. That way you'll be able to handle it by the cardboard and not get paint all over your hands or smear the painting. Punch a hole in the cardboard near the edge and you can hang it somewhere to dry. 

2. Transport your wet paintings in a pizza box. You can tape one on the bottom and one on the lid, and thus get 2 to a box. Make sure you use a lot of loops; you don't want a wet painting sandwich. Ask at the pizza store if you can have a small box; sometimes they will be happy to give you a fresh, clean one. The box here is actually for film reels; it's about 12" square. You can see I cut my cardboard to that size, so I can just tape the whole thing in there.

Of course you can also tape them to the bottom of any old box, so that they don't slide around in your car and get paint everywhere.