Basic guidelines for hanging your paintings in spaces with an 8 or 9 foot ceiling:
1. Never allow the top of the piece to be closer than four inches from the ceiling or closer than eight inches from the top of furniture it will hang above.
2. The width of your artwork should not exceed the width of furniture it will hang above.
3. The guiding rule for small paintings is very important as they are often hung much to high! A small piece should be hung so that a person about 5'8" tall looking straight forward (at close range) will be eye level with the center of the painting. This means the center of the piece should be about 5'5" from the floor.
4. It is a good rule to hang a piece a bit low if you are unsure. Moving a work higher will always cover your mistaken hole.
5. Fireplaces are a great learning tool. Artwork both flat and 3 dimensional can relate to any width of the three parts of a typical fireplace: the fire box opening, fire box plus surrounding material (brick - stone - etc.)or the mantel ledge (typically the widest dimension of the three).
6. The scale (overall size in relation to your room) can be easily seen by taping paper to your wall. You can easily measure any location for it's maximum allowable dimensions then tape over lapping newspaper onto the wall. Stand back look and adjust the size until you are comfortable. Take a quick measure and you are ready to shop for art as you now have a correct understanding of the general size you need.
CLICK THE HALL OF KNOWLEDGE LINK BELOW To see 4 properly hung examples of Marc Rubin's works. A fireplace - a small dining area (width includes chairs and table) an open wall behind a sofa - and a commissioned work hung directly over a sofa.
OR GO BACK TO THE HALL DIRECTORY
The final page in The Hall Of Art Knowledge contains photos of Rubin's art properly hung using the guidelines you have just learned.
