Two Paintings of mine that are hung in the Traffic Zone Center. They are for sale - please send me an email to inquire.
Everyone has different approaches to hanging a painting. Some people like to just eyeball it and put the hanger wherever it seems the best. I believe, however, that it is best to hang your art - an oil painting or acrylic painting - centered at exactly 60 inches. It can be as low as 57 inches, but don’t go over 60 inches. That is just too high.
These two paintings here are shown as they were hung at the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis, where I am a member and where I have my studio. We have a gallery on the first floor where we have shows that are open to the public and the art is for sale.
My first step is to set the painting against the wall exactly where I want it to go, and then put a thumb tack at the center of the painting just above the painting. Then I do some math. In this case the painting is 46 inches tall, and since I want the center of the painting at 60” from the floor I will need to consider half of 46 which is 23 inches. 60 inches plus 23 inches is 83 inches and this gives me the height to the top of the painting. I will then turn the painting around and measure from the top of the painting to the top of the wire that I have already installed on the back of the frame. In most cases I try to install the wire so that it’s top is 6 inches below the top of the painting. 83 inches minus 6 inches gives us 77 inches. I measure 77 inches straight up from the thumbtack already in the wall and add another thumbtack to mark where the hanger will go. At 77 inches the center of the work is exactly at 60 inches - the average height of our line of sight!
The paintings in this picture are acrylic on canvas, and are titled Rhetorical Question, and Hot Summer Night. They are modern colorful abstract paintings on raw canvas and use a variety of mixed media such as graphite, colored pencil, acrylic paint, watercolor pencil, and oil pastels. I am thinking that using collage might be a direction I take in the future.
Please drop me a line if you have any questions about art, hanging art, making art, buying art, or being an artist.