One thing that I absolutely love is choosing art for my home. Now, I realise art is incredibly personal and totally subjective. What I might have heart palpitations over, you might raise your eyebrows at and what you love could leave me feeling completely apathetic. And that’s part of why it’s so incredible – art has the power to invoke emotion in you just by BEING. And that emotion will be entirely dependent upon the viewer.

So, with that said, I wanted to talk about some of my choices for the dining room and some of the pieces I just loved whilst I was shopping around for prints. While I do have a few pieces in the room now, I wanted to switch things up a bit and give it some new life and art is a great way to bring a different kind of mood into a space.

Now, I will say that my two large colourful abstracts are staying. I actually still rather like them (SO UNLIKE ME) and they’ll pull colour into the room in a big way once the walls are painted in pale grey.

Swoon Worthy dining room with DIY abstract paintings

The ones flanking the television in this shot!

I decided to actually have 4 rather large pieces of art in the space. Big art is just a game-changer and when I fell out of love with the gallery wall,Β the large scale pieces were right there to sweep me off my feet. There will still be some medium-scale pieces as well and when I show you the full design reveal, hopefully it’ll all make sense. So two of those four pieces are obviously the two abstracts.

For the third large piece, I’ve chosen Gina Julian’s beautiful print Marie. I blogged about my obsession with this incredible artist here and when I saw it, whatever plans I had for the dining room up to that point got scrapped because I had found my missing piece.

Gina Julian- Marie via www.swoonworthy.org

What do I mean by the missing piece? Well, the ridiculous thing is that I preach all the time that when deciding on colours for a room, it’s all about finding that one ‘special something’ that has colour in it – whether it’s a piece of art or a fabulous fabric or a wallpaper and THAT’S where your palette should be taken from (I even said it in the post about Gina’s art!), rather than trying to decide on a colour and then having to find those special pieces to work around it. I think at the time I came up with the berry design, I didn’t have my “magic piece” and so the room just didn’t feel quite right to me. Well, Gina provided that missing piece and a dining room design was born.

For the fourth large piece in the room, I chose Bear #3 by Jenny Liz RomeΒ *. Β I just adore the amount of energy and the raw power of it. It’s sexy and strong and fierce… so good. And the strong contrasts of black and white are something I’ll be playing with in the new design so this works perfectly to pull those into the scheme.

Jenny Liz Rome - Bear 3 via Swoon Worthy

*This post contains affiliate links indicated by anΒ asterisksΒ – You don’t pay any more but I’ll earn some pennies to buy a few pretties for the dining room so it’s a win-win! ;)

I also chose a few smaller prints for the room – you will notice there is a distinct theme of what I chose here! I fell hard for Seasonal by Beth HoeckelΒ *. The lush leaves, pale pink flowers and shiny red lips give it a distinctly retro glam look and I just had to have it.

Beth Hoeckel Seasonal collage print via Swoon Worthy

And finally, there isΒ Ruben Ireland and Jenny Liz Rome collaboration called Mariana.Β * I discovered the piece via Karen from Making Spaces – she showed it in herΒ bedroomΒ (if you haven’t seen her bedroom reveal, you should totally click on over, the art alone is fabulous and she’s just got such cool style) so I totally copied herΒ like a good little stalkerΒ and got it too. I honestly couldn’t resist.

Ruben Ireland Mariana via Swoon WorthySo those are all the pieces I’m currently waiting on totally impatiently even though all of them are coming from the States (COME ON UPS/FEDEX SORT IT). Yes, there is a distinct theme here of fabulously strong, mysterious women in them which will give the room a decidedly feminine/edgy look but happily, Wayne was cool with everything so I was pretty relieved he didn’t have an issue with my choices (he likes strong edgy women, what can I say – ha!)!

Also, I know I showed this image on the blog alreadyΒ but I framed one of my paintings recently and I loved how it looked as most of my stuff is on thick canvases and this was done on just thick stock (side note: I need to sort out prints of my stuff and get a shop going because I’ve had a lot of interest over the years and I’m just an idiot for doing nothing about it) so that will probably end up somewhere as well – probably on the short wall next to the window rather than in the alcove as shown here.

Swoon Worthy - Goals for the House for 2016

So those are all my choices for the art in this room.Β However, I did find some other prints that were just amazing and if I’d had room for them, I totally would have loved to have included them in my design so I wanted to share those with you as well.

You know how much I love Nancy Ramirez Cozamia art – I actually have three of her pieces in various areas of my home and she’s got a new one out called Candy Peaks. The colours are just so beautiful and I love the variation in patterns here – this would work so beautifully with some leopard print accessories. (Update: It’s available in the UK here!)

Candy-Peaks-Cozamia-Nancy-Ramirez1

Here’s another by Ruben Ireland called Let GoΒ *. I really debated about this being one of the big pieces in the space but in the end, figured Wayne would think it was too weird and I didn’t want to push my luck so it didn’t make the cut. However, it has a wonderful morose feel to it and yet it somehow draws me in completely.

Ruben Ireland Let Go via Swoon Worthy

Another that only just failed at making the cut was a different one by Beth Hoeckel called TerraniumΒ *. Oh it’s just so gloriously cool that I want to LIVE INSIDE OF THIS PRINT. While it didn’t work in my design, I could totally see this in a relaxed California Boho kind of space.

TERRARIUM by Beth Hoeckel via Swoon Worthy

I adore the ethereal quality of One Man Workshop’s Dissolve MeΒ * print. Totally different vibe from the others but it instantly calms me.

Dissolve Me by One Man Workshop via Swoon Worthy

Javier Pacheco’s Tiger GirlΒ * is another very cool contemporary print. If you aren’t opposed to a bit of nudity in your art (and I certainly am not considering the print that hangs in my bathroom), this is a great choice and that reddy-orange is a fabulous starting point for a room soaked in bold colour.

Tiger Girl by Javier Pacheco via Swoon Worthy

Clearly inspired by Gustav Klimt and the art nouveau movement, I found Megan Lara’s print LauraΒ * to be a beautiful contemporary interpretation of his work. Again, the colours are just stunning and would really add some warmth to a space.

Megan Lara - Lauren print via Swoon Worthy

And finally, another by Megan Lara called Facets. I’m not sure what my obsession is right now with females appearing in my artwork but as I said, there is a definite theme going on here!

megan lara facets via Swoon Worthy

For me, art needs to grab my attention. I know it can get really pretentious but in order for me to love it, I have to have an emotional reaction to it. I need to feel something in order to connect to it in some way and that’s always the best way to choose what you love. While colours and themes will often play a role in what I end up purchasing, without that emotional connection, there is no point in spending my money on it. So I would always encourage you to buy what you feel you can’t live without and choose the colours/theme as a secondary requirement.

A lot of these prints were found on Society6 which just has such an incredibly varied selection and is quite reasonably priced so if you are in the market for some new prints, it’s a great place to start. I have just started curating some of my favourites which you can see hereΒ if you wanted to see a few more that I loved or check out my Pinterest board for inspiration and ideas on how to display art in your home.

What do you think of the choices for the dining room and are there any favourites of the ones I shown? I’d love to hear how you choose art – is it a feeling too? Or do you choose based upon a colour scheme? Or like me, a little bit of both?

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