how to hang a painting

Local store prices may vary from those displayed. You can purchase inexpensive spotlights to highlight your painting at night. Hanging a picture without nails is only recommended for smaller and lighter frames. You can pick up d-ring hangers at most hardware and home improvement stores. For example, if your painting is 36 inches (91 cm), then half of it would be 18 inches (45.7 cm). Drill a hole slightly smaller than the diameter of the threaded portion of the eye. Light paintings can be hung up with a single nail, but if you have a heavier painting you’ll want to use anchored hooks or pound the nails into a stud. Cut out paper patterns and arrange them on the wall with low-adhesive masking tape. Find the right wall space. Products shown as available are normally stocked but inventory levels cannot be guaranteed, For screen reader problems with this website, please call 1-800-430-3376 or text 38698 (standard carrier rates apply to texts), Install the Screw Eyes and Picture-Frame Wire, Best Picture and Mirror Hangers for Your Home, Step 1: There’s more thought that goes into how you hang a painting than just what types of nails or anchors you use. This article has been viewed 70,405 times. Large paintings will look more natural if you put some smaller ones around them to balance out the largeness. Drill carefully to avoid boring through the frame. On the other side, arrange smaller objects. Peter Salerno is the owner of Hook it Up Installation, a professional installation company, which has been hanging art and other objects around Chicago, Illinois for over 10 years. Lightweight art—paintings on board and works on paper, for instance—can be affixed to the wall without any concern of excess weight taxing the hanging device (or damaging the piece itself). By hanging pictures on a wall in ways that feature particular colors, the eye is encouraged to travel around an arrangement. Alternatively, drill a hole and insert a screw with a plastic sleeve that expands into the wall. The most important tool you'll need no matter the hanging method is a level – after all your hanging work, you don't want your canvas art to end up crooked. ", Step 4: To determine the exact position for the hanger, poke a pencil point through the paper cutout at the spot where the picture wire will be when fully stretched by the picture weight. Hang Art by its Center. Remove the front liner from the strip and firmly press the utility hook against the surface. If your painting is heavier, look for another way to display it, such as leaning it up against the wall on your mantle or on a bookshelf. When you have a small painting, between one and three square feet, you shouldn’t hang it on a big empty wall by itself. Then take the height of the canvas and divide it by 2 to find the height of the center. The temporary red line from a laser level is helpful for aligning a series of photos level with one another. This will give you the option to stand back and see how the artwork’s size relates to your room and your furniture. If the artwork will hang above a couch, you will typically hang the piece to center on the couch. Never hang a painting so low behind a sofa or chair that you hit your head or move it around when sitting. When paintings are framed. By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy. Choose nails according to the size of … While slightly more difficult than the traditional wall hanging, the task is relatively easy to accomplish and obtain professional results. To hang a heavy painting, start by attaching d-rings to it, and stringing picture-hanging wire through the hooks. The two photos above could be … People shouldn’t strain themselves to view the artwork. The best way to hang pictures will vary from room to room, but there is an art to hanging art. Wallboard anchors are large nylon screws that house metal screws. The center of your picture wants to be 57" from the floor, so we need to figure out next how much higher to place the picture hook. If you take one piece of information from this article, let it be this: 57″ on center.This means that the center of your art piece (not the hook) should be 57″ from the floor.This 57″ standard represents the average human eye-height and is regularly used as a standard in many galleries and museums. Use templates: If you’re hanging artwork by yourself, cut paper templates to size for each piece of art and attach the paper cutouts to the wall with painter’s tape. If you're hanging a smaller work over a large unit, try adding sconces or other art to fill out the composition. Next, it’s as simple as measuring that same distance down from the halfway mark in your tape, and hammering a nail or drilling for an anchor. All you have to do is find hooks that fit the width of your molding, some aesthetically-pleasing rope or string, and design your walls. Collecting art is a thrill—there’s a lovely sense of accomplishment in owning a work of art you adore. Clean the surface of your wall with a 1:1 solution of water and rubbing alcohol. Attach the D-Rings. Please help us continue to provide you with our trusted how-to guides and videos for free by whitelisting wikiHow on your ad blocker. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 70,405 times. Ensure that it's far enough away that the heat from the lamp won't damage your painting. Place the artwork so that its center is roughly 57 inches to 63 inches above the floor. Your suggestion of putting a 3.8 cm nail left my painting look like it was floating because it was too long. To make sure heavy artwork and mirrors won’t fall, lodge anchors into wall studs, using a stud finder to locate them. Again, this is only a place to start. Engage as much as the wall as possible and orient the collection in the shape of the wall. If you’re trying … This option works best for smaller framed works. To learn how to hang a small painting or arrange multiple paintings on your wall, keep reading! Luckily, most canvas art prints are designed with the canvas stretched over a wood frame.This makes it so that if and when you don’t have a frame – or simply prefer the look of frameless art – you can simply hammer a nail in the spot where you want the art, and hang the art directly on it! Get height right. ‘Old Masters tend to be hung a little bit higher, though of course the height at which you hang a work at home will depend on factors including furniture and ceiling height.’. Next, you must make sure your precious objects are installed securely. Above: This option from Deko employs wooden trouser hangers to display art. Hold it steady and in place for 30- to 40-seconds. This article was co-authored by Peter Salerno. If you’re hanging multiple pieces of artwork, you need to figure out how they’ll work … Get a shorter nail, preferably about 1-1.5 cm shorter and see if that helps with the situation. Get everything you need for your home decor projects delivered straight to your door. Hanging a painting is easy, but there are few things you need to take into consideration. If it’s a collection of art then you need to treat the whole collection as one piece, and start and stop it where it makes the most sense, as if it were one. Measure artwork and divide by 2 (this gives you the center) The center of … If you’re hanging a picture with wire, use double wire for heavy pieces. Use of this site is subject to certain Terms Of Use. What's up with that? That’s the height used by museums, and for displays at Christie’s,’ says Galligan. Get an approximate weight of the picture you’re trying to hang. Anchors are available with hooks to hang pictures and with special hooks to hang mirrors. ‘Typically, modern and contemporary works hang at 1.55 metres, to the middle of the picture. You can also hang a collection of small paintings in a pattern. This arrangement is good to accentuate a long piece of furniture in a room, such as a couch or dining table. There are several different methods for hanging canvas art. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/4\/4b\/Hang-a-Painting-Step-1-Version-3.jpg\/v4-460px-Hang-a-Painting-Step-1-Version-3.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/4\/4b\/Hang-a-Painting-Step-1-Version-3.jpg\/aid1818428-v4-728px-Hang-a-Painting-Step-1-Version-3.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":259,"bigWidth":728,"bigHeight":410,"licensing":"