Tips For Rearranging Your Art
Redecorate and Revamp the Room
Maybe it’s a change in the season, or your older pieces are just not sparking your interest like they used to. Perhaps, you’re like me and love to go thrift shopping, often finding a deal that you just can’t pass up! Now, your dying to rework your art collection and showcase that new find.
Decorating your home takes a variety of furniture pieces, including artwork. Wall art is an essential part of any home’s interior design, and it can really infuse your home with your unique personal style. Your art should reflect the feel that you want in each space, visually enhancing the right kind of energy.
Art can be found in traditional ways, such as paintings and sculptures, but also with woven basketry, macrame, and various handmade objects – those things you find interesting. Rearranging your art and adding inspirational touches, especially wood elements symbolically open up for growth to enter into your life. Art enhances and supports creativity around the home and those living within.
Bring a fresh spin, on your newer, or your older cherished artistic items.
Follow along with our simple ideas to improve your flare for design, and put those beauties back in focus!
Mimic Worthy Inspiration
How to choose artwork?
The Room’s Function
When selecting a piece of art to display, think about the use of the room. How you use that particular space can help inspire your décor scheme. Such as a reading nook, ask yourself if all the elements are there to be a comfortable and practical spot? Seating, lighting, a side table within reach, all necessary to the use of the space. Then, decorate around it. Also, consider what style you want for the room before choosing any piece of art. While you can mix and match styles for a unique look, your art should blend in with the theme. For example, if your home uses a Boho Style, you might choose eclectic works of art that infuse global style, with a laid back vibe, layering them in a fun way. The idea is to find that right balance between the space’s purpose, and your personal style.
Pay attention to shapes
Try to think about the shapes in the room, the perfect art piece can be a great balancer, as in this example situated wonderfully above the yellow armchair! Therefore, rooms with hard angles, square and rectangular furnishings need circular and rounded edged pieces for balance. The hard angles can cause stubbed toes and obstruct smooth passageways in a home. Add in rounded side tables, lighting and rugs with softened edges for proper Feng Shui. You can even use art with circular designs too! By adding in your unique preferences with color and design accents, it will make any space feel like home. Now, you’re on your way to choosing what art should go where and reworking your art collections!
Choose your colors
Look around your home, do you have art and accessories with the same color scheme, or a compatible palette?
Think about sticking to three colors tops, a color wheel can help with picking complementary colors, or go down to your local hardware store, paint section, and start grabbing color swatches! You will easily find colors that look nice together, sticking within varying shades of the same family is pleasing to the eye as well. Moreover, there is a link between colors and health benefits. It’s beneficial to look deeper into the emotional and physical ties we all innately have to well-being, and the deeper values of our pull to certain colors. Feng Shui can help with choosing what colors will best support each space within your home, in the ways you most need.
You can also consider things you already have, by looking around your home, garage, attic, and collect several things in the same color families. Chances are you’ll find more than you realize. Finding ways to reinvent many things you already have can be very rewarding, not to mention easy on the pocketbook/wallet!
If you have older items that can be painted, spray paint has come a very long way. Not only are there incredible color choices now, but there’s chalk board spray paint, plastic paint, appliance paints, high heat varieties, textured & so much more! Also, be sure to look for low VOC varieties. I especially like water based spray paints because they are better for the environment and you! Painting items is always my favorite quick change tactic, you can instantly transform virtually anything!
Art & the Mood in the Room
What mood do you want in the room?
Colors can be a key factor! Muted tones are calming, this can be found often in vintage prints, watercolors, and nature inspired art. Browns and greens are great choices. Bolder tones, like red’s, oranges, purples and yellows can enliven any mood and can easily be found in more contemporary pieces with bold lines. Sculptural pieces often work nicely alongside modern art.
If you go shopping for some new accents, keep in mind those three colors you picked earlier, it will make the shopping far less timely and confusing, as where to begin. You will instantly eliminate what doesn’t work. Sometimes, when I am ready for one of my “seasonal changeouts,” I like to choose colors that evoke that feeling for me, such as fresh Summertime colors, blush pinks, cool greens and blues. I typically keep many of my surroundings neutral, with tones of grey or white, but my all time favorite, super versatile wall color from Ace Hardware, the Clark & Kensington line is the color called Drift! I actually painted my entire house this color! It’s the perfect slight infusion of color that works well with both blues and green tones. It changes in hue, as the day wanes and I love pairing it with rose tones! With that kind of versatility comes the ability to incorporate new colors and rework my art collections throughout the year. Try it on a wall, you will see what I mean!
Texture is important for contrast
It’s a good rule of thumb to consider texture, it adds a deeper visual interest to a space. With art pieces, you can find texture in woven accents, patterns, florals and differing fibers. Texture can really be broken into two categories, tactile and visual, so have some fun with it! I like to highlight certain textures with the use of light. For instance, if you pair the backdrop of a flat matte wall covering with a glossy vase next to it, balancing a dull piece with a light reflective piece, can add a whole new dimension, all the while complementing the way the light plays off of each. If you notice the play on differing textures, you’re on your way to a deeper appreciation than you may have contemplated before! I also enjoy natural light, and a well placed colored glass vase that can draw the eye to appreciate the mood of the day. Simple pleasures are the best, those little things that make you look outside, take in nature and get lost in the moment!
Have fun with changing out textural elements, and see what strikes you personally. Consider, florals and greenery as a great addition to your art collections, such as these Pampas Grass Plumes for their textural appeal & dried palm leaves can even be spray painted different colors to suit your needs and the season! I just had to mention it! It’s an easy way to changeout seasonally and bring in the holidays with fresh foliage. Try using greenery as a backdrop to accentuate your art, or to soften the space. Live greenery always balances while enlivening the space it’s placed, be sure to shift the mood in any space that feels stale or stark.
Size it all up
Scale, scale, scale…
The scale of your art in relation to the space it is placed, is essential to consider. Therefore, hanging an overly large painting inside a small area can make the room feel crowded. In the same way, if the artwork is too small than the art will feel underwhelming. That is, the impact will be small. If your experiencing either type of design dilemma, try putting together an art display using a variety of smaller and larger photographs, paintings, and wall art for a more cohesive look.
Read on and check out a great video at the end on how to create your own beautiful art with little supplies!
The main rule of thumb with art size is striking the perfect balance between your furnishings and the room dimensions. Arrange them so that everything works together, and fills the space without letting anything overwhelm the overall scale in both the room and the furnishings. Notice, how the two art pieces above the bed are keeping with the color, style and modern feel of the furniture chosen. They don’t overpower anything. Also eye level is a good height for many art pieces. Art hung too low can bring the mood of the room down, consequently, contributing to depression, as Feng Shui practitioners will note. Alternatively, art hung too high has a poor vantage point and cannot be fully appreciated.
Group for vignettes
Shape & height
Now, bring it all together and try grouping your artisan pieces in two’s or three’s with three ascending heights if at all possible. I personally will set up several vignettes around the room, step back and eliminate until it feels well balanced, but not too heavy. I often prefer a more minimalist, calm tone throughout my home. I know many people who alter the look depending upon the time of year, and I for one, feel the need to also!
Most often it’s about more than just inanimate objects around a room, it’s the way I want to change and grow, and the things that spark my creativity and personal wholeness within my haven. I also enjoy getting my kids involved and creating art together, which brings us together with lasting memories! One of the greatest things about this is the way we bond with humor, let me tell you our art isn’t always pretty, but it sure is fun. I cherish the imperfectness of our perfect art endeavors and most of all the stories behind them! When I look around my home, I want it to reflect all of us, and I want my children to feel comforted and inspired to be who they are, even as their growing and changing. With freedom to be creative, comes a sense of confidence that I can see growing within us all, I hope you will feel the same magic that reinvents your space and a thrill for some artistic fun!
Here’s Some More Ideas:
Design a collection for balance
If you want to showcase a collection of art pieces together, start by picking out the largest piece first. If you use that as your center point and hang the others around it, a nice balance will be easier to find. If you keep within a color scheme or genre, a visual symmetry will also be much easier to achieve. One of the nice things about this type of arrangement is that the collection can grow and change over time, while adding more around the collection, or changing out some pieces for others here and there. It can also be a great place to add seasonal, and holiday charm easily.
Make sure that you are choosing art pieces that you feel joy around. So many times, people decorate for the wrong reasons, such as keeping up appearances, or trying to go for a certain look. Instead, focus on the things that feel good to you. Do not decorate for social acceptance, or ideals that fall away, the superficial stuff… bleck! That kind of energy is negative, it will have a residual feel within your home too. Fill your home with the things that inspire you and know the gravitational pull you felt when you saw, or picked up that item, is there for a reason, it’s a good thing! You are drawn to certain colors, textures or imagery for a reason, you may not know exactly why, but it is just another way you can grow as an individual, focusing more on being true to yourself.
Hang art in unusual spaces
Art should be fun, creative and free! Enjoy unusual arrangements, you don’t always have to stick to rules. Nope, especially in your own home. Place art in the bathroom, even though most of us like to limit our bathroom time, you should make the most of it while you’re there. In Feng Shui, the bathroom is said to be a negative space, counteracting this with natural light, fresh plants, candles and fresh linens is all beneficial. Above all, keep the toilet seat closed, fix leaky pipes and tidy the space. Fresh and clean is key to showcasing beautiful art that transcends the bath into an spa-like space rather than a drain on your energy.
Maybe you have a dark corner, or a reading nook, try placing some art there. Consider interesting shapes that you can make with artwork and even wall murals. If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, include art in the spots that catch your gaze. It’s bound to inspire you with more creativity and zest in your kitchen space.
Try a change in your perspective! Along with your new art additions, try adding small changes throughout your rooms with throw pillows, blankets, rugs, plants with colorful pottery, vases, items that pop your colors around the room, but can be switched out from time to time. You’ll start to see a new space come to life in no time!
