Hummingbird and Honeybee Art Services

02/01/2026

Such a good starter on paint information.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DT-v-JXgNEq/?img_index=19&igsh=Y3JoNm41N2lnaTBq

01/10/2026

01/10/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1PJ13ARo1Q/

12/01/2025

Repaired and Going Home Part 4 of 4: A Baroque Beauty Abandoned, and SAVED

1st pic - beautiful antique frame arrived with years of wear showing — broken ornament, deep cracks, and a surface dulled by time.

2nd pic- shows the frame just before it was joined with the painting that I had created for it, one of my clients saw it just like this, and he said he really liked it, despite the fact that the frame CLEARLY was not finished. He was picking up other frames that I had worked on for him. I was surprised at his interest because this was a project that was created for me, specifically for my walls. Someone else likes my taste? (lol) He brought his wife to see it. She liked it too.

Once the cracks were filled, the ornament secured, and the losses rebuilt, the frame finally felt stable again. It was brought back to life, without erasing its age.
Here’s the finished frame with its rich, restored glow. As promised, it was unified with the painting that I made for it. Every detail of the frame reads clearly again, from the scrolls to the faces. It’s vibrant but still authentically aged — exactly what a frame like this deserves.

A New Chapter
My client then called me later on to request that he buy the painting and the frame for his wife for her birthday. I was very hesitant to sell the painting because i love it so much, but we came to a resolution where they bought a print of my original painting, and they bought that frame for it, and took it to a new home that I could never have predicted! What a surprise ending! Restoration Isn’t About Perfection — It’s About Preservation, and frames like this carry stories, and my job is just to help them continue. So to the Antczak's, I hope you love your new artwork, and happy holidays to you both!

If YOU have an artwork or frame that’s seen better days, I’d love to help bring it back to its best again. Details on my website, or message me directly on here.

11/29/2025

Painting a special work for an amazing frame Part 3 of 4: A Baroque Beauty Abandoned

As I started to see this frame come back to life as I worked on it little by little, I started to see that the round opening of the frame would need a special painting made just for that frame. The painting had to completely make sense for the frame and they needed to feel unified, and special together. So I decided to paint one of the most beautiful photos of Black Trumpet mushrooms that I had ever seen.

This post details the process of painting those mushrooms. I first drew a very light circle in pencil on the canvas where I needed my composition to lie, and then I framed in the mushrooms, and put a wash on the canvas. Some very dark purple paint to start the composition, and in a few months, I had a finished painting. Log on tomorrow to see the finished product in all of its glory with the painting and the frame united, and hear the secret surprise ending to the story!

11/29/2025

A work in progress Part 2 of 4: A Baroque Beauty Abandoned

What I did:
✨ Stabilized and filled every crack
✨ Reinforced the corners and the rear panels that were separating from the front
✨ Rebuilt the missing carved and molded elements by hand
✨ Lifted years of surface grime from the ornament
✨ Retouched and unified the gilding without flattening it
✨ Finished with tones that keep the patina while restoring its glow

And now?
Just look at her.
Full of warmth, full of detail, full of life again — ready to frame something beautiful for another generation.

This is why I love restoration. Every piece has a story, and I’m just here to help it keep going.

If you have an artwork or frame that needs a second chance, I’d be honored to help.

11/28/2025

Before & After part 1 of 3: A Baroque Beauty Abandoned

This frame came into my studio after the owner decided to get their artwork reframed and they left this behind with a framer who knew that this needed too much work to be resold as is. The frame came with a long list of troubles — lifted and separated ornamentation, deep structural cracks, missing corners, and years of grime dulling down all of that gorgeous detail. It had clearly lived a very full life… and it was ready for a little care.

What I started with:
✨ Cracked and separating corners
✨ Missing and chipped decorative elements
✨ Missing gesso and fragile detailing
✨ Darkened grime built up in the crevices
✨ A dull, uneven gold surface that hid the craftsmanship underneath

Pieces like this are always a delicate balance. The goal isn’t to make them look “brand new”—it’s to help them shine again while respecting their history and the wishes of the client. Stay tuned to hear the work that went into this stunning frame and see the after, and hear the surprise twist of the story!

11/13/2025

Here's a fun before and after cleaning picture for you. This before picture is just after I did a test cleaning on an area that had all of the colors that I was most concerned about testing during treatment. You can see that beautiful vibrant color just peaking out underneath that grime.
The after picture gives the viewer the beautiful feeling of seeing all of the waves within the scene, and you can feel the intensity of all of the color, it is at once serene and energetic. The background being a wonderful impressionistic blur of a shoreline which the artist tells us is part of the story, but is much less relevant that what is happening in the water.
It was SUCH a joy to work on this artwork and see those vibrant hues come back to the foreground as I removed the cloudy haze on top of it. The person who purchased this recently poured their heart and soul into getting it cleaned and presentable, and restored for genrations to come. It is such a little treasure.

11/13/2025

Here is another Before and After for you art fans! This is a painting from 1893, which would make this piece 132 years old in 2025. By Charles Stobie. It is entitled "Chief Ouray's Teepee" and was done with an artistry and sensitivity that really speaks to me as an artist. You can see that someone had tried to clean a portion of it when it came in. However in the bottom left of their test cleaning, I did further test cleaning of my own, and you can see how much cleaner it got with a proper treatment. The edges of this painting were starting to loose paint -they were heavily cracked along with a loss near the shield and a nail was sticking through the stretcher and up through the canvas. The sky was a real challeng in this cleaning process because I was afraid I would start taking away that gorgeous teal color in the sky, so the treatment in that area was cautious. I would rather be cautious and leave some small traces of dirt behind, than take too much off the canvas and remove any original pigment that I can't get back. However, you can see the incredible transformation of the artwork, you can see the clouds in the sky, and how each of the little sticks has a lovely highlight on it. So well rendered. And happy that this artwork might get to live another 132 years because of some of my interventions that will help the paint that was starting to loosen reaffix itself to the canvas for years to come. This deserves to live on.
Chief Ouray was a 19th-century leader of the Tabeguache band of the Ute tribe in Colorado, known as a man of peace who negotiated treaties with the U.S. government. The government recognized him as the "Chief of all Utes" in Colorado, making him the main contact for treaty negotiations, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Ute territory. Ouray spoke English and Spanish, had a farm, and is remembered for his diplomatic skills and efforts to protect the Ute people.

07/08/2025

A remote and neglected masterpiece by Fra Angelico has been restored ahead of the Renaissance legend's major museum show in Florence.

07/06/2025

Back at the paint project. Things are getting messy...