TIPS TO INTEGRATE ART

TIPS TO INTEGRATE ART

To effectively integrate artwork into a home’s decor, interior designer Troy Beasley offers these tips:

Edit ruthlessly. Display only favorite or meaningful pieces.

Reframe works to give them a fresh look. Try displaying several related images in a single frame.

When framing, think contrast. Try simple frames for busy pictures, elaborate frames for simple images. Put contemporary frames on traditional pictures, and vice-versa. Use similar frames to unify a collection. Or choose a variety of frames to suggest photos were collected over time.

Use artwork to create a mood, inspire a color scheme, as a focal point in a room or to define a theme: travel, family or a favorite activity such as boating.

Add interest to a collection by mixing styles or mediums — combine realistic and abstract portraits, for example, or landscapes in oils, watercolors and mixed media.

Position pictures in unusual places — in a cabinet behind a display of crystal, on top of a cupboard, among books on a bookcase.

Hang colorful pictures in neutral-toned rooms, neutral pictures in bright, busy rooms.

Position artwork at eye level, not higher.

Think big. Large rooms need large paintings — or a large collection of smaller pictures. In a small room, a single, oversized picture adds great drama.