I’ve sold paintings in car parks after open studios, at private views where someone stood in front of a canvas for twenty minutes without saying a word, and through my website to people I’ve never met and probably never will. Every single one of those sales started the same way. Not with a price point, not with a size guide, not with a colour swatch held up against a wall. They started with a feeling.
That’s what I want to talk about here. Because if you’re trying to figure out how to choose art for your home, every practical guide will tell you to measure your wall first. I’m going to suggest you do something different.
Start with what stops you
When Sea Glass Light sold, it sold to someone who found it through the website. They didn’t know the story behind it, what they knew was that something in that painting made them stop scrolling. The palette. The particular quality of the light. The way the colours held something quiet that they recognised.
They didn’t need me to explain it. The painting had already done its job.
That’s the first thing I’d say about choosing art for your home: pay attention to what stops you. Not what you think should stop you. Not what matches the sofa. What actually makes you pause. That involuntary response is data. It’s telling you something real about what you respond to, and a painting that provokes it will still be doing that in ten years.
If you’re browsing online and something stops you, screenshot it. If you’re at an open studio or a gallery and you find yourself drifting back to the same piece, notice that. Don’t rationalise it away. The rationalising comes later – and it almost always finds a way to justify what you already felt.
Go and see it if you can
Golden Ascent has been seen in shows and exhibitions, and by people who only ever saw it on a screen. But every single person who saw it in person said the same thing: the photograph doesn’t do it justice. That’s true of almost every painting, and it matters more than people realise.
Texture, scale, and the way a painting holds light – none of these translate fully to a screen. A painting that looks impressive online can feel cold in person. One that photographs modestly can stop a room when you’re standing in front of it.
If you’re considering an original painting, ask whether you can see it. A good artist will usually accommodate a studio visit or a viewing by appointment. I do it regularly. It costs you nothing except the time to make the journey, and it will tell you more in five minutes than an hour of scrolling.
Some of my favourite sales have happened that way. Someone arrives at the studio slightly uncertain, looking at several pieces, and then they stop in front of one and that’s it. The decision is already made. They just needed to be in the room with it.
If you can’t visit in person, ask for more photographs. Different light, different angles. Ask the artist to tell you about the scale. Ask how the surface looks up close. Any artist worth buying from will be happy to answer.
Understand what you’re actually buying
This is the part most guides skip entirely, and I think it’s the most important.
When you buy an original painting, you’re not buying a decorative object. You’re buying someone’s direct attempt to externalise something they felt, saw, or understood. That’s a fundamentally different thing from a print, a poster, or a piece of manufactured wall art – and it changes everything about how it works in a space.
Ignited Wave has sold to people who follow my work, who’d watched it develop on Instagram, who knew the story behind it before they ever asked about buying it. They didn’t need to be convinced of anything. They already had a relationship with the painting. What they were buying wasn’t just the physical object – it was the whole context around it. The process. The intention. The fact that it existed because I needed to make it.
That context is what makes original art different to live with. It gives you something to tell people when they ask about it. It gives the painting a meaning in your home that goes beyond what it looks like. And – not incidentally – it tends to mean the painting continues to reward you the longer you live with it.
So when you’re choosing art for your home, I’d encourage you to find out something about how it was made and why. Read what the artist has written about it. Follow them if they’re active on social media. Watch how they work. You’re not just choosing a painting – you’re deciding whether you want to let someone’s way of seeing the world into your home. That’s worth knowing something about.
Think about the room differently
Now for the practical bit – but approached differently to how most guides frame it.
The standard advice is to choose art that matches your room. Colours that complement, scale that suits the wall, style that fits the overall look. That’s not wrong exactly, but it’s a limited way to think about it. The most interesting rooms I’ve ever seen treat the art as the anchor, not the accessory.
A single, strong, original painting can do more for a space than an entire gallery wall of coordinated prints. It creates a point of gravity. Everything else in the room either responds to it or doesn’t need to.
Scale matters more than most people expect. People consistently choose paintings that are too small for their walls, then wonder why the room feels incomplete. If you’re putting a painting above a sofa, it should be substantial – at minimum two thirds of the width of the sofa, ideally more. A painting that’s too small for its wall looks apologetic. The same painting at the right scale looks like it was always meant to be there.
Colour is less important than value – the balance of light and dark tones. A painting with strong value contrast will work in a wide variety of colour environments. A painting that’s all mid-tones will tend to disappear into the wall regardless of how well the colours match. When you’re looking at a painting you’re considering buying, take a black and white photograph of it on your phone. If it still looks compelling in greyscale, it has strong values. It will hold its presence in a room.
Light changes everything. A painting that sings under gallery lighting may feel entirely different in a room with warm, directional light, or a north-facing room with cool, flat light. If you’re buying online, ask the artist what lighting conditions they’d recommend. If you’re visiting in person, try to see the painting in different parts of the room.
Don’t choose by committee
This is advice I give freely because I’ve watched it ruin more potential sales than almost anything else. You find a painting you love. You take a photograph to show your partner, your friend, your mother. By the time the committee has finished deliberating, the feeling that made you stop in the first place has been talked out of existence.
Art is personal. It’s supposed to be personal. The people who live longest and most happily with their paintings are the ones who trusted their own response to it, not the ones who achieved consensus.
That doesn’t mean ignoring a partner’s view if you share a home – obviously it needs to work for both of you. But there’s a difference between checking someone feels okay about a painting and submitting it to a panel for approval. One is consideration. The other is a way of avoiding a decision.
If you love it and you’re hesitating, ask yourself honestly whether the hesitation is practical (size, budget, logistics) or whether you’re just looking for permission. If it’s the latter – and it usually is – give yourself the permission.
On budget
Original paintings range from a few hundred pounds to prices that would make your eyes water, and everything in between. The right question isn’t “how much should I spend?” but “what am I getting for what I spend?”
A small original painting by an artist whose work genuinely moves you will bring more to your home than a large, expensive piece that you chose because it looked impressive. Start where you can, with what you actually respond to. Build from there.
Many artists – including me – offer payment plans for larger works. It’s always worth asking. The worst anyone can say is no.
And buy originals where you can. Prints have their place, and I sell them myself, but there is a different quality of experience that comes with living with an original work. It’s difficult to articulate precisely, but people who’ve made the switch tend to notice it immediately. The painting is present in a way that reproductions aren’t.
The connection is the point
Every painting I’ve sold – whether through the website to someone who never met me, at a private view where we talked for an hour, or to someone who’d been following my work for months before they ever enquired – has ended up in the hands of someone who wanted to know what the painting meant to me.
That’s the common thread. Not the colour, not the size, not the price. The meaning.
What was I trying to make? What was I thinking about when I made it? What does it feel like to stand in front of the finished thing?
When you’re choosing art for your home, look for that. Find the paintings where you want to know the story behind them. Where the image makes you curious about the person who made it. That curiosity is a good sign. It means the painting has something to say to you specifically, and it will keep saying it for as long as you live with it.
That’s what art in a home is supposed to do.
Andy Taylor is an abstract painter based in Nottingham. He paints original works in acrylic, inspired by the British coast, moorland skies, and the journey from darkness to light. Original paintings and prints are available at art-haus.co.uk. Studio viewings are available by appointment.
