Hanging Art With Ellen Hanson

Posted by Blueprint

Don't call Ellen Hanson an interior designer -- she prefers the "old-fashioned" ring of 'decorator.' Excluding her preferred title, there's nothing antiquated about her decorating. We've admired Ellen's work for a long time and are particularly awed by her beautifully unexpected compositions of art for her clients, and herself. Hanging art is a great way to add color and unity to a room, but when done haphazardly it can be distracting, disjointed, and a plain ol eyesore. (No surprise then, that it’s what home experts cite as one of the biggest decorating mistakes they see.) So we asked Ellen how she composes an arrangement and what her tips are for hanging art.

Ellen's living room composition

This is what she had to say:

"When installing my living room furniture I found that the two large sofas and three similar tables all lined up on a very long wall created a weighty horizontal presence. In an effort to counteract the heavy, static formality of those elements I decided to hang the art asymmetrically. First I placed all of the pictures on the floor in front of the furniture, by doing so I established the outside edges of the composition. Then I moved them around until I got the rhythmic effect I was after. When doing the installation, I hung the pieces quite close together so now the arrangement reads as a whole that balances the furnishings below.

-Do not be afraid to use different and seemingly unrelated frames: When the art is grouped each component is like a note of music in a song.

-Crooked pictures are very noticeable when hung in a collection. For each picture use two hooks several inches apart so they do not shift."

A child's room that she decorated

More of Ellen's decorating magic

After writing this post we noticed that Apartment Therapy had a similar post yesterday about hanging art in clusters!

Comments

[claire]

where would i be able to find couches similar to those? i need them.