I’m about to dive into a pretty big decorating project in our house (more details on that coming to the blog this Wednesday), which has me thinking about art in particular. Truth be told, I’m a bit of an art hoarder. I’ve got stacks and stacks of framed prints, paintings, and drawings in our basement just waiting for the right wall. I get so sentimental and attached to any piece that really speaks to me, so I’ve collected quite a few “had-to-have-them” art works over the years.

Despite all that, I still struggle with nailing the right combinations for the walls in our home. There’s no denying that pairing art together is hard, but I’ve come up with a few quick tricks to help take at least some of the guess work out of the process. I think the number one thing to remember if you’re struggling with this, too, is that it’s rare to get it right the first time. Don’t be hard on yourself, and just know that it takes a bit of playing and experimenting to create the perfect art pairings.

Another big tip I have is to create digital mood boards (like the graphic you see above) before you buy two or three pieces that will end up going together. That way you can experiment before making the investment, and you’ll be able to play around with different sizes, too, just by making the image files smaller or larger on your mood board.

Pair-Worthy Prints From Artfully Walls

1. Fictional Interiors I + Comet and Oranda

2. Long Way Home + Tulips

3. Black Form + Sunday Market

4. Damuresk + Andrew

5. Winding Trail, Windy Day, Arcadia Buffs + Les Roches Rouges

6. Blur + Not a Circle (False 1)

My process to narrow down hundreds of prints from Artfully Walls into the pairings listed above went a little something like this… I would scroll until I spotted a piece that really stuck out to me. Then I would pull the image file over to my desktop where I could open it bigger and keep it off to the side of my browser window. Then, with the first print still in my periferal vision, I would scroll through the website again until I saw a piece that complemented the first. It’s definitely not rocket science, but it works for me, and that’s how I managed to come up with the pairings you see pictured in today’s post.

The cool thing about this process is that all 12 of the prints I linked to in that list ended up looking pretty great together as a whole! I think, when you learn to trust your gut and be really visual about pairing art prints together, you naturally end up creating a collection of pieces that feels cohesive. So much so that you could probably mix and match almost any of these 12 prints to make fresh new pairings when the mood strikes.

There are a couple of other tricks you can try when pairing art (like matching the painting styles, or having at least one similar color between the two), but this might just be one of those times when you have to go with your instincts. Art is one of the most subjective things in the world, so there is no right or wrong answer—you just have to feel it.

What a cop out answer, huh?! Well, it’s what I believe, although I’m sure there are lots of other ideas out there! If you have art pairing tips of your own, please share them in the comments below so we can learn from each other.