Through the roof: Cristina and Laura Capitanio, Northern Italian sisters with a passion for art, stumbled into a rising demand for Renaissance-style murals on vacation in Venice--California.

IT took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Capitanio sisters have painted three of them in the last decade.

"Many people want the Sistine Chapel," said Cristina Capitanio. "It's getting easier."

Based out of their Culver City home, Cristina and Laura Capitanio paint customized murals and frescoes for homes and businesses--but it's not just angels in the clouds.

Sorene Fine Arts takes on a range of commissions, from an 8-by-14-foot pictorial collage for Morgan Stanley to cityscapes of New York and Seattle for a homeowner's model train station to flying bears.

"It was a nursery," Christina said of the flying bears. "But instead of angels or cherubs, they were bears. It made me laugh."

In resurrecting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in homes across Los Angeles, Sorelle Fine Arts is tapping into a growing market for reproductions of Renaissance-period art.

Tracy Stum, creative consultant for Art for After Hours, which connects artists with publicly funded projects, said Italian and Renaissance art has become especially popular in Southern California, where the climate resembles the Mediterranean. "The market is flooded right now," Stum said. "There's tons of work for everyone."

Vacation Plans

Raised in Bergamo, Italy, Cristina, 35, the lead artist, graduated with a five-year degree from the Bergamo School of Art and studied fresco painting and restoration for two years in Brescia, Italy. Laura, 33, also an artist, got a bachelor's degree in accounting in Italy and manages most of the firm's finances.

The sisters came to the United States for the first time in the early 1990s. Laura had just sold the family newsstand and Cristina, who had a career as a physical therapist, landed in L.A. at the tail end of a three-month vacation.

While staying at a hostel in Venice (California), they struck up a conversation with a neighborhood designer who mentioned he was looking for a muralist. They convinced him to let them give it a try and a week later, the mural was finished. They spent the next year handling projects for the designer. "It was like a dream come true to own your own business and have a passion in everyday work," Cristina said.

Operating in the early days from a Venice apartment equipped with little more than a ladder and phone, they scoured antique shops on La Cienega Boulevard. Work rolled in slowly. Some clients turned them down because they thought they did not charge enough to be good. Now, they average $1,000 a day in fees, including consulting and renderings. "They tell us places they like, what inspires them, and we incorporate that into what they have," Cristina said of the clients.

The most they have charged so far is $50,000 to decorate the library and study of a Bel-Air home in the style of the Chateau de Versailles--complete with a 22-carat gold leaf ceiling.

For now, however, revenues remain modest. Four years ago, Sorelle Fine Arts had sales of $36,000; this year it is expected to reach $290,000. The partners (Sorelle is a variant of "sister" in Italian) are trying to double this year's revenues in three years.

On site and off

In a typical month, Sorelle Fine Arts handles three to four projects (the duration ranges from one day to three months). The sisters typically paint two days a week; the other days are spent on sketching and renderings. They have one employee who was hired two years ago to help in finishing and stenciling.

In many of their frescoes, the Capitanios have to re-create the cracks and fading that appear on real-life Renaissance works like the Sistine Chapel and use plaster made from lime and sand and a special pigment that only works when the plaster is fresh to gain the effect.

"It's an old technique," Laura said. "It's what they used to do during the time of Michelangelo."

Cristina also has used digital renderings more often during the past few years, especially after she married an animation supervisor at Sony Corp.

She said clients often see their project drafted on the computer before anything is painted. They can also see digital photographs of the work in progress if they are out of town or on vacation.

Although most clients request traditionally painted pieces, Cristina said they have digitally created entire works, such as a mural at the newly constructed Buena Vista branch of the Burbank Public Library.

Cristina said she plans to use digital production more frequently, possibly to create paintings or more functional art. They also want to sell their own line of products (they already have made a line of coasters with Italian stone decor).

"What we do is not accessible to most people," Cristina said. "This is art you can use."

PROFILE

Sorelle Fine Arts

Year Founded: 1995

Core Business: Customized murals and frescoes for homes and businesses

Revenues in 2002: $250,000

Revenues in 2003: $290,000 (projected)

Employees in 2002: 1

Employees in 2003: 1

Goal: To reach a broader clientele and expand digital production

Driving Force: Continue to work through referrals from friends and family, launch product lines and paint more murals for public projects