Matching your pictures to particular rooms or to other paintings can be a very difficult art-form to master. Or, if you are lucky enough to be gifted with an eye for this, it can be so easy you wonder why it is such a problem for others. This is likely due to how you were brought up and the amount of contact you had with the art world. The below tips and tricks are for those who are learning these skills. Learning how colours work together can be as rough as painting a house entirely the wrong colours and then having to re-do all that work. It can be painful. Learning about light and shade on paintings can be as bad as hanging your favourite watercolour in the bright sun so that you can see it better only to find that over time it fades and the colours are yellowed. Hopefully, the following tips will help to avoid such problems.

Colour co-ordinating paintings to wall colours is easy if you are commissioning a work. Just let the artist know the colour of the wall and the job is done. Colours that match or show off the wall can be introduced into the painting so that both look their best. Colour co-ordinating paintings already created to walls you didn’t paint, or did long ago, can be more difficult. Around some houses splashes of colour can be found that are labelled ‘feature walls’. These are great places to hang a painting as these areas are already set out as distinctive and important. For these spots it is best to choose that one fabulous painting, especially if it is large. Unfortunately, if you have a bright blue wall and a dark brown/black painting it might not look so good. Try the painting that will fill the space, has complimentary or contrasting colours in it and will not be damaged by the light.

Hanging paintings in rooms that are brightly coloured or patterned can be difficult. The colour of the room can make a painting look dull or insignificant while the pattern could make the painting appear smaller, larger, off kilter or just out of place. Spots on stripes can look absolutely terrible or just plain funny. Choose paintings with colours that are opposite that of the wall for a statement or with complimentary colours for a more soothing room. Black and white images look fantastic on a brightly coloured wall. For Striped walls, paintings have to be exactly the right size, hung exactly in the middle of a stripe or over many so that the spaces between the lines on either side of it are equal. Your eye will pick up any fault in the spacing and will transfer this fault to the image. The landscape will look as though it is tilting slightly, flowing too far in one direction or as if it is unfinished. For these difficult walls, guilt frames and old fashioned images look best but care and attention needs to be paid in hanging these to obtain the full effect.

For houses that are without feature walls or brightly coloured rooms, paintings can be placed almost anywhere. The main problem you will encounter is placing two unmatched paintings together. Spacing unmatched paintings carefully will often help to avoid that unwanted clash. Space the paintings so that they fill the gaps left by furniture or match the lines that are created by objects around the home. Leave plenty of room between clashing paintings so that the eye doesn’t pick them both up as part of the same image. If you have to turn you head a little to see the next painting the gap is likely enough. Another less commonly used way of dealing with clashing paintings is to group many of them together. This can lead to what is colloquially known as ‘galleryitus’ so it in most cases this is best avoided. For those with more paintings than they can handle, grouping paintings may be the only way to ensure all have their place on a wall.

When hanging your paintings consider the impact on excess sun, shade or broken shadows, and interior lighting on the work. Each has a special way of destroying the effect of a painting. Excess sun can damage the paint, excess shade dulls the colours of a painting enough to make a bright painting hard to see properly and interior lighting can make the finish shine so much that the image behind it cannot be seen. When hanging a painting consider carefully the effect of these elements on the painting. If any make it hard to see the picture or look like they might cause damage, avoid hanging the painting until a lighting solution is found.