The Bird Portrait series are mixed medium collages.  The birds are done with colored pencil then sewn onto layers of decorative papers, The paper is then mounted onto wood, and everything is coated with a layer of encaustic medium. Encaustic is dammar resin (a tree sap) and beeswax.  They are melted together then spread with a brush and smoothed with a heat gun to make a skin on the piece.  The encaustic process adds fleshiness to the piece that breathes live into the surface.  I then take heated metal objects and press them into the warm wax, this has the effect of etching the surface.  I then fill those grooves with oil pastel . When it all has hardened, I give the whole piece a good buffing with a soft cloth.