Hello everyone, I am a french painter and drafstman, just joined DPW a few days ago. Very glad to join this community. I wish to thank the members for all the valuable answers that I could find in this forum, and also the DPW team for the nice beginners guide and hard work.
I never ever sold paintings or drawings online, so it is all new for me. I am preparing my account ,gallery, and many questions arise, specially about shipping.
I have been comparing offers for shipping overseas, and I came to the same conclusions as @olga_lefort ( Posting with or without tracking ) : for a 8x8 canvas board, as long as the parcel is less than 3 cm thick, the best option from France is a registered letter using the national postal service : it is delivered against signature, and can be easily insured depending on the value. Compared with other shipping services here, it is cheap enough so it shouldnât make potential buyers afraid ( about 10-15 $ ).
My question is about customs :
How do you french or european DWP members handle custom declaration as a sender ? For european countries, it is a breeze.
How about the rest of the world, say if I want to send to USA ? I found out that we need to prepare a document for customs, and stick it to the parcel. What do you declare the contents as ? Do you say âartworkâ ? "artistic paintingâ ? âsamplesâ ? âgiftâ ? Are there things that you learned and would share about this ?
More specific to France, is there any particularities regarding Maison des Artistes when you declare overseas sales ?
Thank you !! 
I donât know how it works from France to the US, but I sent a painting to Canada once from the US. On the customs form I put a value of $125 and my friend ended up paying customs on it. In the past I have sent items to my family overseas from the US. If it is over a certain value the Dutch charge a customs fee.
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Hello Patrice , Iâm french too 
I have Joined DPW 5 months ago, and sent little paintings . Mine were painted on medium, 0.5mm thick, so light and thin. As you said, I have sent them as letters with insurance so tracking number âŚI didnât ask for the custom form and my letters arrived safely and without problem âŚ
I think that since the price was low, there is no problem with custom âŚ
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Hello. I am in Spain and have sent small paintings to England and United States. Mine were painted on thin canvas board as Nicole described. I sent in padded envelopes (after having wrapped them in waxed paper and bubble paper) and with tracking number. Price was under $100 so no problem with Customs.
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Hello and thank you very much for your answers @haralsonart @nicolebarriere @siemprecreando !
I finally opted , as you all seem to have too, for padded envelopes , registered letters. It is really nice to have your feedback and to be able to share here on the forum. I appreciate very much.
As for customs, I suppose I will think about it again if the case arises often !
Thank you @nicolebarriere for your nice comments on the cherries too
Sorry, Patrice for replying you late. I am not too often present on DPW this year but what I can say you from my experience, is that if you are sending your painting as a letter (as I mentioned in my previous post) you do not have to complete a customs declaration. As la Poste explained to me the letter cannot be open, it is illegal to open letters, so there is no possibility to verify what is inside. Sometimes la Poste asked me to fill in a customs declaration even for the letters, so I wrote: âpainting by senderâ. Never had any problem with customs and my buyer neither. I sent also parcels with a customs declaration completed exactly in the same way. No problem reported.
Regarding custom duty, this link can be helpful regarding US sales:
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/360/~/importing-personal-and-commercial-original-works-of-art%2C-paintings%2C-drawings%2C
And this link can be helpful in general:
For Maison des Artistes, we can exchange by email if you want in French. Maybe you will be more helpful for me than me for you 
Bonne chance pour les ventes!
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I have Joined DPW 5 months ago, and sent little paintings . Mine were painted on medium, 0.5mm thick, so light and thin. As you said, I have sent them as letters with insurance so tracking number âŚI didnât ask for the custom form and my letters arrived safely and without problem âŚ