Indiana Calligraphy Guild Hosts Harvest Crittenden Workshop

I attended a wonderful workshop called The Antique Page in Indianapolis on March 5 & 6. The workshop was on antiquing papers to give them a Victorian look and was taught by Master Penman from Michigan, Harvest Crittenden. If you have a chance to take this or any other workshop she presents, you will not regret it. She will be teaching at IAMPETH in Phoenix this summer, as well as at workshops around the country.

This first picture is my as yet incomplete final project from the workshop. I will attach a small photo of my grandmother in a frame covered in similar papers, and I will letter words about her life in calligraphy. It features many of the techniques we tried during the two days of study (and play.)

This photo is of some of the samples of antiqued papers and final projects Harvest shared.

These next photos show some of my papers. We used coffee, walnut ink and fruit tea solutions to dye the papers, and many additional techniques were employed to embellish them. The process is fairly uncontrollable in the dying stage, but the choice of embellishments and finishing will change them considerably. One objective of the coffee and tea staining was to establish a very Victorian look to the papers. Incorporating each new technique or embellishment was important to the overall antique look of the papers.

Most of my papers were Arches text wove, that wonderful workhorse of a paper known to all calligraphers. I also used some 140# watercolor papers just to see if they would result in different looks. Other than those curling more, there was little difference in the appearance.