With spring well on its way many of us this time of year, take the opportunity to reconsider our living areas, and to think of ways to add personality to our homes. An effective and relatively cheap way of doing this is investing in some new art prints, from creating a collage of prints to putting up huge paintings, there are many ways you can use art to bring a room to life or add a touch of personality to a property.

When choosing art for a room, think about what theme you want to follow. You could choose pieces that reflect a certain era or decade – perhaps a time associated with the property – or you may want to pick items that use certain colours to bring out the tones in the furniture or features of the space.

Composition is important and having artwork in the right place can change the way a room feels. Some people may be tempted to use the centre of a wall as a starting point, but instead think about where pieces of furniture are. It can look much more effective to hang a painting directly above a sofa than to have it half straddling different features. Also, try to avoid placing pictures too high – especially in rooms such as the bedroom and dining room where people are more likely to be sat down. You should try and keep art at eye level.

There’s a popular trend at the moment for using several prints and images to create a collage effect, but it can be tricky to get the composition right first time. Use some inexpensive rolls of paper to cut out the shapes of the artwork and stick these to the wall using masking tape to act as a guide. This way you can play around with the positioning until you get it just right.