Framing Your Canvas

1. Measure the wall or the piece of furniture you want to hang it over.

Measure both width and height of the wall you plan to hang your piece on. 

1. Decide what size art you need (including frame)

• Art should be about ⅔-¾ the size of the wall you plan to hang it on or over the furniture you plan to hang it over.
• Multiply your measurement of the wall or furniture by .66 and .75 to figure out the size range that might work best for that area. For example. If the couch is 72 inches (or 6 feet) wide:
• 72 in x .66= 47.5 inches
• 96 in x .75= 54 inches
• So your art should take up a space between 47 and 54 inches wide.

1. Now you can also do the same with height. If you are measuring over a piece of furniture, only measure the space from the furniture to the ceiling. Otherwise, you can measure from floor to ceiling. Let’s pretend you are putting the wall over a couch, and the space between the top of the couch and the ceiling is 48 inches (4 feet)

• 48 in x .66= 31.6 inches
• 48 in x .75= 36  inches

So in this example you would want your art to be between 47 and 54 inches wide and 31 and 36 inches tall. 

• If hanging art on an empty/blank wall. Use the rule of three-eighths. 

This rule is named because the white space on the sides of the artwork, should be roughly equivalent ot 3/8ths of the width of the art. In this example, you would multiply the height and  width of your wall by 0.57. This will give you the ideal total size for the artwork (including the frame) that could be hung on your wall.

Gallery walls, ditychs or triptychs.

If you plan to hang multiple pieces on your wall, use the measurements you found above to plan the total area that these pieces should take up, including leaving room to allow 2-4 inches between the pieces. 

Frames:

When selecting the best size canvas to have a painting created on. Keep in mind future framing that could increase the size of your piece. Most standard frames will increase the size of the border by ½ inch to up to 2.5 or 3 inches. Since the frame will be on both sides (for width) and both sides for height. So when selecting your size canvas, keep in mind a framed canvas could increase the width/height by up to 1-6 inches. 

TIP:

Keep in mind, these are general guidelines, not hard fast rules! It can be ok to go against these guidelines in certain situations.

The best thing to do is to use painters tape on the wall to create the shape/size of the artwork you think will work best or even cut it out from wrapping paper or brown kraft paper to give you the best idea of what an artwork that size would look like in the space. 

The following tips are from Wayfair LLCs "Wall Art Size and Placement Guide".

When placing artwork, follow our tips below:

• The middle of the artwork should hang about 57" from the floor (or at eye level for most people). If it is hanging above a sofa, make sure there is at least 6" –12" between the top of the sofa and the piece of art.
• If you have low ceilings (below 8'), break your wall into four sections (from the bottom up) and hang it in the third section.
• If you are hanging multiple pieces of different heights, make sure the middles line up.
• When hanging artwork above your stairs, hang a piece every third step to get a diagonal look.
• Think about your room, if it is already cluttered or busy, opt for larger pieces to not overwhelm the room.