image. Then, to hang one wall at a time, I measure and mark
up (in pencil) one entire wall for the drill holes before starting
to hang the work. As long as you have a good rubber eraser,
you will be able to remove this line once the work is in place.
Although the math can be complex and it can take time to
mark it all up, once this is done the actual hang is very quick.
This method also has the advantage that one person can do
everything, although two people will probably be needed to
actually lift and position the images on the J hooks or screws.
This is also one of the stages of the hang when the work
is best done by one person. Two people trying to do the same
calculations will pretty inevitably make a mathematical
tangle. The important thing is to check it visually when it is
done and before starting to drill. It will be fairly obvious that
the pencil marks on the wall are in the wrong places if the
spaces have not been calculated accurately.
Let us take a hypothetical example. Suppose we are to
hang a straight line of fi ve 30 × 40-inch framed landscape
photographs on a wall that is 20 feet or 608 cm long. They
are large images and will be hung quite close to each other
in order to keep a tight sequence and to fi t them all onto the
same wall. I am using J hooks and strap hangers, two of each
per frame. Each strap hanger eyehole is 10 inches or 25.5 cm
from the top of the frame. Each J hook is 2 inches or 5 cm
deep and has two screw holes, one directly above the other.
I will therefore attach the hooks by the top screw hole and
make the second hole from that, so all measurements will
work from the top hole.
I start by placing the frames by eye before I work out the
exact measurements, and move them around until I decide
that they look best with a gap of about 6 inches or 15 cm
between each frame and a very slightly larger space at each
end of the wall.
Then I do the math to establish where to drill holes for
the J hooks. I do this either on graph paper or write it out
clearly, step by step as I do it, in order to keep track in case
I need to revise it, refer to it, or adapt it for another wall. I
need to work out three things:
1. the accurate placing of the frames across the wall and the exact size of the spaces
between them
2. the height of the horizontal line where the J hooks will be fi xed
3. the exact position of each of the ten J hooks on that horizontal line