By Leslie Hassler

We are well on our art journey, this week we are going to be talking about how to hang your art in a series of articles. 

But first, let’s answer one of life’s more popular design questions -”I’ve always heard that your should hang art at eye-level.  My spouse and I argue about what that means.” Answer: Eye level is loosely defined at 66″ off the floor. Generally, the center of your art or composition of art should be around 66″ off the floor.  But this is a rule that is to be followed in a specific instances.  If you and your spouse argue about is eye-level at 60″ or at 70″, my suggestion would be to split the difference and hang your art at 65″ – a compromise. 

 

Whew, ok now with that out-of-the-way, let’s talk about instances that the “eye-level” rule of thumb may not work for you.  The first technique of hanging art is by grouping or composition.  This means you have several (two or more) pieces of art that relate to each other.  By hanging in a grouping, you are going to hang the pieces with consistent spacing between the pieces.  This can be as small as 1″, but as great as 4″.  The overall purpose of this technique is to create a larger read on the display of the art.  The grouping does tend to be geometric in shape, generally in squares, rectangles, rows, columns, circles, but as you will see, it can be a bit abstract as well.

 The first example shows the grid shape to the art display, even with the sprinkling of the candle sconces, the grouping is very uniform but interesting.  Botanicals, Architecture, and Audubon prints make great subject matter for this large of a display.  As a side note, notice that all the fabrics lack a pattern that would compete with the pattern created by the artwork.

 I really liked this photo for an example of how to treat multiple sizes of art and still hang the art as a grouping.  This was very skillfully done and I feel sure that it took a fair amount of time to achieve the look.  If you find yourself with inconsistent sized artwork and want to hang the art as a group, I would either grab some brown kraft paper, or a handful of paper bags.  For each piece of art, cut a piece of paper the same size and shape. Label the paper for the piece of art that it represents, and tape the paper cutouts with blue painters tape on the wall.  This technique does take time, but allows you to individually move the pieces around until you have created a pleasing composition.  Before you pull the pieces of the wall, either take a picture, or lightly mark your walls with a pencil so that you can recreate what you mocked up.