M MEGSYARTS LLC

Service bench

What MEGSYARTS LLC takes on, and how each line is run

Everything below happens at one bench in one flat at 2265 S State St APT 240, Salt Lake City - 84115-1402, United States (US). There is no warehouse and no queue of assistants. Each service has a fixed shape, a written specification and a clear handover point, so you know exactly what you are buying before the first mark is made.

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Portrait Commissions

A portrait commission begins with a sitting rather than a photograph. We block the head and shoulders in charcoal on toned board, check the proportion against a mirror, and only move to colour once the structure holds. Most single-sitter portraits take four to six live sittings of about ninety minutes, spaced across a month so the paint can tack between passes.

Where the sitter is not local, we work from a set of supplied references and a short video call. That route needs at least twelve photographs from different angles, taken in the room where the finished portrait will hang if possible. Colour must be judged from the real references, so we ask for a plain grey card beside the face in at least one image.

Standard sizes run from a 30 by 40 centimetre head study to a 60 by 80 centimetre half length. The support is a stretched linen panel on a sealed wooden stretcher, primed with two coats of a warm ground. All commissions include two progress reviews, a final varnish matched to the room light, a fitted hanging wire and a written care sheet.

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Palette-Knife Landscapes

The landscape work is built entirely with a knife, one ridge of colour laid beside the next so each plane keeps a hard edge. Sketches are made on site along the foothills and the valley rim, then the finished panel is worked in the studio from those sketches and a set of colour notes. The paint is applied in three passes: a thin underlayer, a middle pass for mass, and a final pass for light.

Because the surface is thick, drying takes longer than a brushed piece and the panel is left flat for at least three weeks. We will not varnish an impasto landscape early, since a skin that dries from the top traps solvent underneath and dulls the whole surface within a year. That patience is included in the quoted delivery window rather than treated as a delay.

These panels are the most hard wearing work we produce and they suit hallways, offices and any room with strong daylight. Sizes run from small 20 by 20 centimetre studies to wide 90 by 60 centimetre pieces for a long wall. A pair of matched studies is a popular option for flanking a doorway.

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Beginner Studio Lessons

The beginner course runs for six consecutive weeks in blocks of four students. Everyone shares the brush pot rail, works at a standing easel, and uses the same limited palette: a warm red, a cool blue, a yellow, a white and one earth. Restricting the palette early removes the confusion that makes most new painters freeze at the mixing stage.

Each session follows the same rhythm. A ten minute demonstration at the bench, forty minutes of guided working time, then a short critique where we name one thing to keep and one thing to change. Week one covers value and how to see it, week two edge quality, week three colour, week four mark making, week five composition, and week six brings everything together in a small finished piece on a panel.

All materials are supplied except a sketchbook. Students take home a sample board at the end of week three and a written record of their palette mixtures, so the work can continue at home between sessions. The course suits absolute beginners and returning painters who want the fundamentals rebuilt in a disciplined order.

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Colour Theory Clinics

A clinic is a two hour session for painters who already work regularly but keep producing mixtures that go muddy or flat. We build a palette trough of test mixtures on the bench and compare each one against a neutral grey card under daylight corrected lamps. Seeing a colour against true neutral is the fastest way to learn what is actually happening in a mix.

The clinic covers warm and cool shifts within a single hue family, the difference between a tint made with white and a tint made by glazing, and the reason a shadow made by adding black rarely reads as a shadow. You will mix a range of greys, a range of skin tones and a small set of landscape greens, testing each against the card and recording the result.

Everyone leaves with a folding sample chart built from their own pigments and a short written list of the mixtures worth repeating. The clinic is most useful once a painter has a settled palette, so we ask that you bring the actual tubes you use rather than borrowing ours. Clinics can be booked privately for two people or joined on a scheduled date.

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Pet Portrait Weeks

Twice each quarter the studio clears the calendar and runs a dedicated week of animal portrait work. The format is deliberately tight: references arrive before Monday, the drawing is blocked in on Monday, colour goes down across Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday are reserved for detail and finishing. This structure keeps drying times honest and keeps the price below a full portrait commission.

We work in a loose realist style on a primed panel sized for a hallway or a shelf. Dogs, cats, horses and birds all work well with this approach; reptiles and fish are accepted when the references are strong enough to read scale and colour accurately. At least six photographs are needed, taken in natural daylight without flash, including one clear image of the eyes.

A pet portrait week produces one finished panel with a varnished surface, a fitted hanging system and a care sheet. Where a family has more than one animal, two panels can be run in the same week with a shared palette, which keeps the pair visually consistent when they hang side by side.

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Gallery Wrap Finishing

Finishing is our service for painters and photographers who have work ready but no clean way to present it. We stretch or mount the piece, fold the corners properly, seal the edges, back the panel with a cloth board and fit a hanging system rated for the weight. Every piece is photographed before it leaves, so there is a record of the condition at handover.

The work happens on the same bench as our own canvases and follows the same standard. Corners are folded rather than stapled over a raw edge, the backing board is cut to the frame so it does not bow under humidity, and the hanging hardware is placed at the correct fraction of the frame height rather than guessed. A badly finished piece will sag or scratch within a season, and we see enough of that to know the difference.

Turnaround is usually five to seven working days for a single piece and can be rushed to three days when the drying and sealing schedule allows. We accept work from outside artists and photographers and we will tell you honestly if a piece is not suitable for a wrap before any work begins.

The process, from brief to handover

Every service on this page follows the same five stage path. The steps are short to read and take the uncertainty out of the middle weeks of a project.

  1. Brief and size. A conversation by phone, email or in the studio settles the subject, the size, the support and the date you need the work. We confirm the size in writing before anything is ordered.
  2. Study and colour test. For portraits a charcoal and wash rough, for landscapes a pair of small sketches. We test the key mixtures on the trough and agree the direction with you.
  3. Working block. The main piece is built in passes, with the surface allowed to tack between layers. Two photographed progress reviews are included at agreed points.
  4. Finishing. Varnish, backing, hanging hardware and a condition photograph. No piece is released before the finish has cured to the sheen suited to its support.
  5. Handover. Collection from the flat or crated shipping with tracking. You receive a care sheet and, for commissioned work, a digital image for your records.

To begin, write to arts@megsarts.lol or call +19898229205. The studio answers enquiries within two working days.

Ready to set a date on the bench

Spring slots for portrait and landscape work are released first to people on the studio list, and the remaining dates open to the public a fortnight later. If you have a fixed date for a gift or a reveal, tell us at the brief stage and we will build the schedule backwards from that day.

MEGSYARTS LLC keeps a small number of commissions open at any one time so that each piece gets its full drying window. Book early rather than asking for a rushed finish; rushed varnish is the one shortcut this studio will not take. Visit the contact page for the studio address, hours and a message form that prepares an email for you.