Building a Gallery Wall

How to Build a Simple Gallery Wall

A gallery wall is a great way to put up your favorite works of art and photography in a single stylish display. While they are great for showcasing your most treasured pieces, the arrangement of the pieces themselves (along with your choices of frame) is a form of creative expression in and of itself, allowing you to show off your keen eye and flex your decorating skills.

This week, we’ve put together this simple-but-effective gallery wall made up of framed prints, and canvas art all available for purchase here at Art & Canvas. We’ll go through the process step by step, which you can emulate to create a gallery wall of your very own!

Choosing Your Art

The first step in creating your gallery wall arrangement is selecting the framed pieces and/or canvas prints that you wish to display. A gallery wall can often be done completely organically, with different pieces in different frame styles and colors added over time (or, at least, with the intent to look that way.) Usually though, it can be more appealing to use pieces that are connected by a common theme, element, or art style, which is what we have done for this display.

In this case, color and style were our biggest considerations. We chose pieces that primarily feature warm colors and subject matter that is stylistic, edging toward abstraction. Subject can be seen as a travel theme to evoke feelings of wanderlust. The three middle pieces all use the same style white frames to give the arrangement a sense of uniformity… and to contrast with the colorful art of course. When putting your arrangement together, try choosing pieces that share a similar connection. How broad or specific those connections are is entirely up to you.

“Juicy Print” by Florent Bodart

12×16″ – Unframed Canvas

“Sunset” by ArtBina

24×18″ – White  ‘Affordable Medium’ frame

Envisioning Your Arrangement

Once you have selected your pieces, you will want to experiment with different arrangements so that you can envision what they will ultimately look like once they are up on your wall. Do this by measuring the section of wall you want to use for your display, and then laying your pieces out on the floor or a tabletop in a within that desired-sized area (tape measures help). Measure the spacing and alignment between your pieces so that you can more easily replicate it once it is time to hang them on the wall.

*For this style gallery wall, we placed the center piece in the middle and began to place the next inner two framed art prints on the left and right of the center piece. Then the remaining two on the left side and right side of those pieces. Adjust each piece to space evenly and balance within the measured gallery wall space. Measure with a ruler and jot down the space between each art piece on your draft layout before hanging.

Artwork in this gallery wall display, we decided on an arrangement that incorporates balance and symmetry, using Central Park by Leonid Afremov in a landscape-oriented 20×30” Affordable Medium frame as our center piece. Building outward from there, we used two 24×18” pieces in the same frame – Sunset by ArtBina and Color Explosion by PrintPunkStudio – for the inner middle. The trio of framed pieces is, in turn, flanked by two 12×16 canvas prints: Juicy Print by Florent Bodart and Our Story by Sylvie Demers

“Central Park” by Leonid Afremov

30×20″ – White ‘Affordable Medium’ frame

“Color Explosion” by PrintPunkStudio

24×18″ – White ‘Affordable Medium’ frame

Hanging Your Artwork

With your art pieces selected and your arrangement composed and measured, it is time for the big moment! Before you start hanging your artwork, make sure you have all of the supplies and equipment you might need to make the process as hassle-free as possible:

  • Ruler or tape measurer – These are necessary for accurately measuring the position and spacing of your pieces, and for keeping everything properly aligned.
  • Hammer – The utility for putting nails the wall is obvious, but depending on the frame you use, you might need a hammer to install a saw-tooth hanger as well. (hanging kit is provided with all framed art prints purchased from Art & Canvas)
  • Wire hanging kit – If you intend to use unframed canvas as a part of your gallery wall as we have (the outer two pieces), it is a good idea to install a hanging wire for best effect. (canvas prints sold by Art & Canvas includes a wire hanging kit)
    • A detailed explanation of how to install your wire hanger can be found here.

 

For our display, we hung the pieces in the order they were initially arranged and measured at the beginning:

  • Starting with the framed centerpiece, adding the other two framed pieces on either side, and then finally adding the two canvas prints on the outermost edges.
  • TIP: Since the centerpiece is the largest — with the rest getting smaller the further out you go – this makes it easier to keep the pieces all centered with each other as you add them to the wall.

Once you have finished hanging your pieces in an arrangement you are happy with, the final step is to take a step back and admire your hard work. Congratulations, you’ve made a gallery wall art display that you can be proud of!

To learn more about turning your artwork into a dazzling display, contact the experts at Art & Canvas today!

“Our Story” by Sylvie Demers

12×16″ – Unframed Canvas

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