Whether you walk through an art gallery, or you look at oil paintings offered at an online store, one thing is certain: you will immediately know if you like a painting. Perhaps the scene creates an emotional sensation within you that is pleasing, and you imagine that you would enjoy that painting hanging in your home for many years, without tiring of looking at it.

Let’s consider if the painting you’ve fallen in love with will fit into a room in your home. Since lines and colors in the artwork can energize or calm you, consider if the lines, such as tall trees or standing people, are vertical, or if the lines are horizontal such as a beach scene or a person who is posed in a sitting or reclining position. If you have your heart set on buying a painting with horizontal elements, then you’d do well to place it in a room that is meant for relaxing, such as a sitting room, parlor, or a formal living room.

If the painting has vertical elements, such as tall trees, buildings, or people standing or dancing, then you’ll want to place that type of artwork in a room that has movement and is energized—a front hall, or an entrance wall into your living room, dining room, or kitchen. Ideally, it’s best to hang oil paintings in an area that reflects what will happen in the room.

Another example that might help you to decide where to place an oil painting is if the artwork has a feeling of action in it, then wherever you hang the painting, it will energize the room. Your mind will awaken when you look at the action in the painting. Likewise, for a bedroom, den, or study, you would want to choose a more calming and somber painting that might cause you to slow down and relax.

Be sure to consider the length and height of the painting. Will it correspond with the furniture in the room where you intend to display it? For example, if you want to hang it above a long and low sectional sofa, the duplicate horizontal lines would make the room quite attractive. In addition, try to choose paintings that have a similar color family as the rooms where you will display them.

A unique strategy for choosing the perfect oil painting for your home is when you already have a motif or a theme that compliments your lifestyle or location where you live. Any type of artwork that is similar to the décor of your home or heritage will make you and your guests instantly feel comfortable.

Below you will find five art themes you might want to consider for your home, when choosing artwork.

Cityscape Artwork—Reflects famous locations and cities, such as the white stone buildings in Greece, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the countryside in Israel.

Seashore and Beach Oil Paintings—Reflects a particular city or town with its seashells, palm trees, sand, hammocks, cerulean blue water, or a lone lighthouse.

Flowers and Still Life Paintings—Reflects a natural beauty and charm found everywhere in the world; from creamy white lilies to orange and red poppies.

Landscape Artwork—The horizontal lines in any landscape art painting make a small room feel much larger. It’s as if the landscape art simulates a window; thus, the artwork opens up a room to create a serene setting.

Cuisine Art—Every kitchen is enhanced by the artwork the homeowner selects that depicts food, fun, frivolity, a beverage, or a local farmer’s market. In addition, vivid colors can light up and enhance any kitchen’s décor.

When you follow these guidelines for purchasing artwork, you’ll discover that each subsequent purchase gets easier, and your home will feel more cozy and comfortable when you match the painting with the room.

Author’s Resource Box:

Have you ever felt that a painting was so real you could feel yourself walking into the scene? Maya Green invites you to explore some of her painted treasures at: http://www.yessy.com/maya

Ms. Green is an artist who creates bright and energizing art with intensive colors that express emotional feelings of reality.

Adults need to connect with others, to develop satisfying relationships, and through the arts in a social setting such as in a visual arts class, a special bond can develop.  It is people who are doing and creating together, not necessarily all doing the same thing, but all involved in the communal activity of making something new.  It is not only new for the viewers, but it is even new, serendipitous and often surprising for the creators.

Making art allows the individual to express emotions, not only with language, through symbolic displays of their responses to their world.  It becomes another language, a rich and useful language that is being learned.  It is an enhancement to living fully by helping people understand life and respond to issues in a fresh way.  The quality of life is richer because there is more attention to the beauties of the world. This includes the blending and seeing of colour, form, value, line, pattern, texture, detail and so much more and in such diverse combinations and manifestations.

There is a myth that surrounds the visual arts.  Stories abound of people “not being able to draw a straight line” or “only being able to draw stick people.”  There are no straight lines in nature, unless they are accidental, and stick people have a place in this universe.  Art has room in it for all kinds of expression.  The distance between being able to create and not depends on what learning is desired, the instructor’s ability to pass on ways of working in the visual arts, exposure to the art of others, a looking at the world around us, and a honing of skills which definitely can be taught and most importantly, to  be learned.

Yes, there are artists acknowledged as geniuses, but they too, had to at some point start with a first painting.  Skill in art builds on skill, and time, and the doing.  One way of enjoying art is in the enjoyment inherent in the making of art, in the process of creating art.  There is, of course, a further enjoyment in the looking at and the analyzing of the creative expression of other artists, seeing it as a ribbon of visual history, a connection to and the study of cultures.  It allows the brain to sing and dance, swirl around in joyous abandon and to release the stranglehold of propriety that adulthood may impose.  It gives imagination wings and encourages it to soar to unknown and delightful heights.

Is art not a wonderful way to communicate?  It offers an opportunity for multicultural communities to interact, for those without verbal language for any number of reasons, a way to reach out, to express joys and sorrows.  It allows ways to access new strengths and new skills and to seek enrichment for the soul because there is never any end to ways of working in the visual arts, no end to the learning that can transpire, other ways to see the same thing, no end to the seeking and yearning and looking and fulfillment.  How beautiful is that?  There is no end because the visual arts are always the beginning.

About Author

Valerie Kent -
About the Author:

Valerie Kent, B.F.A.,B.Ed.,M.F.A., is a longtime artist and writer who enjoys doing art for the sake of doing art. She leads workshops at art schools, art societies and in Italy in France in various media. She also writes for online and hard copy publications and her artwork is shown widely. www.valeriekent.com artistvalerie@yahoo.ca