Five Tips for Selecting Artwork For Your Home

Artwork adds a great deal to the look and feel of a room. This is true for everything from busts to paintings. Your goal is likely to choose artwork that will help create the ideal mood in each room of the home. The following are a few tips to consider using in your search for artwork, to help you achieve this.

Choose the Scale Based on the Purpose for the Art

Conventional wisdom dictates that you choose artwork to fit comfortably within the space you have designated for it.This is fine to do, but it is important to remember that “comfortable” is somewhat subjective. To help you choose the right size artwork for your home and individual aesthetic sense, consider what you want to accomplish with each piece.

Perhaps you want a piece of art for the end of a hallway. The piece can easily be almost the height of the ceiling and somewhat narrow. Alternatively, you may be looking for a print to fit neatly over a small table within that space. Both ideas will work, but the former one will provide a more dramatic touch than the traditional second approach. If you are looking for something that makes the space pop, go with the taller and thinner piece.

Colors Matter

Artwork should not be so bland it seems to disappear in the room, but should stand out from and work with all the other elements in the space. Consider art which incorporates some of the colors of the room into the design. This will help to establish a visual connection and a degree of unity in the overall color scheme. It will also help those colors to stand out a little more and give a fresh appearance to the upholstery and the window treatments you already have in place. The contrasting colors in the artwork will draw the eye and add more visual interest to your space.

Themes for the Art

Even with casual decorating schemes, some sort of theme will arise. Identify and use that theme to point toward new art for the space. Nothing is quiteas jarring as a 19^th-Century reproduction adorning a room done in a sleek, monochromatic modern design. Look for classical, versatile pieces—wildlife scenes and beautiful, artistic landscapes can usually accommodate any design scheme.

Think About Texture

While you may tend to think of artwork as prints or paintings that hang, there is much more to adding art to any space. As you look at different pieces, think in terms of texture. How would some sort of metal artwork look on one of your walls? Perhaps a stone or marble bust would be the ideal thing to help bring out the beauty of your antique occasional table. Introducing some new texture into the room gives everything a nice facelift and provides the eye with one more thing to admire.

Artwork as an Investment

There’s no reason why you can’t collect artwork which both appreciates in value over the years and appeals to your own taste.Be on the lookout for up-and-coming artists who show promise of being in demand in the years to come. Even if you have to settle for a modest piece now, one that adds something to the room and increase in value over the years is a great way to add a new kind of investment to your portfolio.

Your choice of artwork must welcome people into the room and invite them to come in and look around. Pieces that have no connection to the rest of the space will have the opposite effect. Take your time, consider many different options, and then settle on something that will create the look and feel you want. While it will take time to find the right artwork for each room in the home, selecting the right pieces and displaying them to best advantage will ensure that you and others enjoy the spaces for many years to come.