"Decorative painter Christine Meyers of Kensington was hired by a Georgetown Realtor recently to apply colorful glazes to the kitchen and bathrooms in an empty $3 million home being readied for sale in Northwest Washington. The techniques she used there represent only a small sampling of the skills that make up a muralist’s art. These include faux finishes and trompe l'oeil.

She has completed residential and commercial projects, doing walls of two-story staircases as well as wine cellars and basements. One of her largest projects was using trompe l’oeil urns and greenery to cover the electrical transformers that were an eyesore outside the Leisure World compound in Leesburg, Va.

She has copied Dumbarton Oaks’ orangerie; done a takeoff of a picture by Georges de la Tour called "The Cheat" in an elevator — changing it to become a scene of dogs playing poker; and put a tortoiseshell pattern on the ceiling of a sitting room. She can make a wall resemble limestone, burlap or linen, all through paint.

The empty house project required her to pick a base paint for each room and then apply a glaze she mixed herself.

French by birth, Mrs. Meyers is a student of languages and a lawyer by training who has never taken an art class but who found as a child that she was talented enough to make pin money from painting on silk. While her Web site (www.frenchdesigning.com) gives away her origins, she is open to many styles and influences.

Her normal working method involves showing a new client various sketches and photographs from her portfolio to help stimulate and define what a client wants. She then may provide color drawings of the proposed work to get approval before beginning.

With some projects, she stencils a basic pattern onto the wall; other times she works entirely freehand. She charges by the project or by the hour — a range of $60 to $80. The latter is more fair for her, she says, since conditions on walls vary. An average mural costs between $7,000 and $8,000. Putting an Italian vista on a dining room took her three weeks, working eight hours a day.

The history of wall painting is centuries old, she points out, and once could be enjoyed only by governments and wealthy patrons. Today, she says, it’s possible for people of lesser means to have them. The most popular request, however, is for a bathroom or powder room. She once painted a fake window in a powder room that showed a person climbing a ladder to get inside.

"My taste is more French than anything else, but I can do Asian and I love everything from Roman times," she says of a career that has spanned 14 years.

She finds Washington homeowners in general "very conservative," and very Provencal and Italian-minded. "They want what other people have. What they love from Italy — especially Tuscany — is scenery and ambience. Provence because of the climate and [its association with] painters. They should want California; a California vineyard in a bathroom would be gorgeous."

To her puzzlement, she also has found a preference for cows, she says. "A herd of cows or goats." Many people request that she use a canvas that is as thin as wallpaper instead of painting directly on a wall. That way, the work can be taken with them when they move.

But with any project, preparation is everything. She uses only brushes made of bleached boar bristles that she buys in France. "Most of the ones sold here are from China and aren’t good enough," she says."