When I was in the first grade, I would go to a friends house so we could walk to school together. The house was filled with the aroma of coffee, almost a burnt smell. Mom said it was because chicory was added. Whatever it was, the smell of the coffee and the cold winter morning is still in my memory as if it was this morning. My technique, though time consuming, is simple. I start with a preliminary sketch in graphite. When my design is satisfactory, I ink the sketch, using a black, 05, pigma micron pen. I use Prismacolor pencils. Each area is a layering of about 5 different colors, going from dark to light, until the paper is totally burnished. Once the coloring is complete, I re-ink to make the line work a true black. It is then sprayed with workable fixatif to seal, protect and prevent wax bloom. The substrate is Crescent archival rag board.