Art can often be an expensive addition to your home or office. I like art but…. for me it’s a design element. I don’t want to spend the majority of my budget on art. Check out your local resale shops and estate sales for inspiration. When you are going through piles of old paintings or drawings nothing may jump out at you, but remember a new matte and frame will completely modernize the look of your art wall.

Not only can picking the “right” art be stressful and overwhelming, but how to hang a wall of pictures can be as well. Especially if you think that everything should be symmetrical or matching. In reality art looks better on your wall than in the store and once you start to hang the pictures you will see that not all the art needs to be perfectly symmetrical. It’s more about visual balance. For example, on my wall pictured below I had the two vertically hung sketches on either end to add balance eventhough they are different sizes.

These were some of my mother’s sketches from art class in college. One issue I had and you may as well with older paintings or sketches is that the paper has yellowed and might make look dirty. I took the art to Michael”s and found a cream colored card stock paper that complemented the color of the painting. I would recommend one shade lighter of cream than the paper to add brightness to the artwork. You can use a exacto knife to cut the card stock to fit any frame. I chose black frames for more contrast and to balance the yellow/cream colors. As you can see one frame is a bronze color which works because it plays on the yellow of some of the other pieces. It doesn’t have to match the other frames if the colors are repeated elsewhere and all are the same tone and overall feel.

If you are looking to add color the same rules apply, find matching card stock and a black frame. There are also a lot of great mid century modern art out there that simply need an updated frame. Good Luck hunting! I’d love to see what you find and post in the comments!