Do you remember back in the 1980s (or whenever it was you were a kid) when you’d visit your grandparent’s house and you’d see the “Wall-of-Portraits?”  You know what I mean – all the grandkids’ school 8 x 10s framed in a little gold frame, all hanging haphazardly on the wall.  Maybe they were hanging in a diagonal configuration going up the stairs?  You know what I mean, right?  So does that memory scare you a little bit when it comes to thinking about hanging portraits in your own home?  I mean, you want to celebrate your family and decorate your home with love, but you also want it to look stylish, am I right?  You want it to look professional and fine-art-ish, yeah?  Maybe you are a bit overwhelmed at the thought of trying to plan the wall art out making sure everything is the right size, hanging in the right place, with the right pictures selected, and the right frames and mats, and oh yeah, what about the colors everyone is wearing in the pictures?  How do you make sure those coordinate with your décor so everything looks good with in your home?  If so, Check out these top 3 tips to learn how to plan portrait gallery walls to coordinate with your home’s decor, plus a free gift at the end!

#3 – How to plan portrait gallery walls:

Start with The Right Scale

First, you need to make sure the sizes of the images – once they are matted and framed – are sized proportionately to your walls and the available negative space.  If you’re hanging more than one image together in a gallery configuration, you need to make sure the spacing between the images are correctly proportionate too – otherwise the grouping can look unorganized.  If you create your gallery at a scale that is too small, the images will look lost in the negative space, or even worse, if you create your gallery too large, it might not fit on the wall you have in mind, or it might overwhelm the space.  So what should you do?  Well, I say push the Easy Button and leave your gallery wall designs to the professionals.  I have three degrees (Fine-Art, Interior Design, and Architecture) and am a nationally-certified interior designer – so I can handle gallery wall designs all day long.  I have a special software that allows me to take a picture of your wall and design your gallery walls exactly to the correct scale, and show you how it will look on your wall before you even buy it!

#2 – How to plan portrait gallery walls:

Frame Choice

The style and color of your frame needs to coordinate with your home’s colors and overall style.  If you have a really urban/modern/industrial type of space, you probably don’t want an ultra-traditional brass ornate frame, you know?  Again, this is where my design education comes into play, because I know exactly what styles and colors of frames will go best in any home décor.  This knowledge plays a big part in understanding how to plan portrait gallery walls.

#1 – How to plan portrait gallery walls:  Colors – Dress to match the sofa!

Aside from the frame style and color, you also need to be sure that the subjects IN the portraits are wearing styles and colors that coordinate with the home’s décor – that’s my last tip in teaching you how to plan portrait gallery walls.  If you have a super casual beach house with an interior in blues, greens, white, and beige, a portrait of you in a fire-engine red evening gown in a gloss black frame is probably not going to look right hanging there with your beach décor – it will just look way out of place.  That’s why I recommend working with a photographer that does complimentary in-person wardrobe consultations BEFORE your portrait session.  That way, you can make sure not only do all of the people in the portrait have wardrobe selections that compliment each other, but they also compliment the home’s décor as well.  I call this “Dress to Match the Couch!”

                                   

Bonus Tip: 

While planning for scale and size of portraits for a gallery wall can be done virtually, I also recommend working with a photographer that does in-home consultations that include both wardrobe consulting AND wall art design consulting at the same visit.  For my consultations, I can do wardrobe consultation for the entire family, then measure a few walls, get your wall art  display ideas, and be prepared to present them to you in a full mock-up at the review and ordering session.  That way, you’ll see exactly how your selected portraits will look on your walls before you buy them.

Not only that, but once your order has been placed and your portraits arrive, I’ll deliver them to you and install them on your walls – at no extra charge!  (for Cincinnati-area clients) Maybe you live far away and we can’t do an in-person wall art design consultation?  If so, just sign up below to download:

How to Photograph Your Walls to Visualize Wall Art

for a step-by-step guide enabling you to send me pics of any room in your home where you’d like to hang wall art.  Then I’ll take your room picture and show you how your wall portraits will look on the wall at different sizes, with different frames, and in different configurations! 

Check out another great article: Top Cincinnati Locations for Epic Senior Portraits

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