Basics of Canvas Wiring & Hanging

If you have painted your own canvas and now wish to hang it up, you will probably need to wire the canvas yourself. Although this task requires no special knowledge or abilities, you will need to run to the hardware store to purchase a few necessary tools.

In order to wire your canvas, you need two small eye-hooks (the smaller the canvas, the smaller the eye-hooks), a hammer, nails and picture wire. Turn the canvas over so it's facing down and you're looking at the back of the frame. Screw an eye-hook into the inside of the stretcher on the left, about 2/3 from the bottom. You won't need to drill a hole for the eye-hook to screw into; the wood should be soft enough to penetrate without a drilled hole. Just press the sharp tip of the eye-hook into the wood and turn. Don't stop until the eye-hook is in all the way and the loop of the hook is parallel to the canvas.

The same should be done with the second eye-hook. The only difference is that the second eye-hook is screwed into the stretcher on the right. The two eye-hooks should be even with each other across the canvas.

After measuring the distance between the two eye hooks, double the length you measured and cut that much wire. Loop the wire through the eye-hook on the left and then through the eye-hook on the right. Center the wire so that equal amounts stick out of each eye-hook.

Then fold over the excess wire poking out of the eye-hook on the left, and wrap that excess around the length of wire that strings between the two eye-hooks. Wrap the excess length of wire around the wire in the center, again and again.

Stretch the wire in the center a little bit so that instead of making a straight line between the two eye-hooks, the wire curves upward in the middle slightly. Fold over the excess end of the wire sticking out of the eye-hook on the right, and wrap it around the center wire over and over again.

When selecting a place to hang the picture, consider that hanging a painting in direct sunlight may cause fading with time. Hold the picture up to the selected wall and stick your arm around the back of the painting to feel the location of the wire. Stick out your thumb and allow the painting to hang from it. Then remove the painting and note the approximate location of your thumb against the wall. Hammer the nail into the wall in the approximate location where your thumb was.

Larger, heavier paintings may require picture-hangers to hang securely from a wall. A picture hanger is a heavy-duty nail stuck in a small metal holder that holds the nail in the wall at an angle. In order to nail a picture-hanger into a wall, place the nail in the picture hanger and then place the tip of the nail against the wall. Hammer the nail into the wall as you would any other nail.