The Bottom Line
I was dubious about the usefulness of this color chart before I saw it and, having seen it, I remain dubious. I acknowledge it's a very comprehensive color chart and a lot of research has gone into it, but how much practical use it is really?
I guess it comes down to how you approach color, but I don't think pastel painting is about buying the perfect color to match a subject. A color changes according to what else you use. You can blend colors physically and optically. Unless you're a Pointillist, I believe the best color usage is painterly in approach, not scientific.
Pros
- Available in a wire-bond version which stays open at a page nicely.
- Enables you to find out which pastel manufacturer produces a particular color.
- Includes all pastel brands available as open stock (individual sticks) in the USA except Pan Pastels
Cons
- Available only through the publisher's website. Expensive (US$40 at time of writing review).
- Blank swatches with black outlines where CMYK printing was thought unable to reproduce colors
- Blank swatches with gray outlines where colors in Munsell scale aren't produced in pastels.
- Excludes Pan Pastels which weren't available yet when book was produced.
Description
- Published by Huechroval Corporation, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
- 140 pages. Available ringbound (wiro-binding), three-hole punched, and looseleaf (unpunched).
- Can be purchased through the publisher's website only.
- Sample spread and a list of what the publisher says the book will do for you on their website.
Guide Review - Multi-Brand Color Chart Pastels from Huechroval
When publisher Marie Meyer asked if I'd review a copy of this book, I told her I was dubious about how useful such detailed charts are for the average person, and it would be hard to see how I could rate it as value for money at US$40 (plus shipping and tax).
In reply Marie said: "Your 'dubiousness' is warranted when it comes to absolute beginners. However, for artists who have moved beyond that stage, it is a really useful tool that pays for itself, because it makes it easier for them to spot and then fill the gaps in their collection by buying from open stock. It is also an education in how to analyze color in terms of hue, chroma and value."
Sure, it explains the concepts of hue, chroma, and value according to the Munsell system nicely, but that's only two pages. It discusses the various brands available in the USA and Europe as well as providing a grayscale chart of the sizes and shapes of these, that's another four pages.
The bulk of the book is the spreads with the color chart on the right and the list of pastels on the left. Some colors don't have swatches because the publisher "did not believe that we could achieve the correct appearance using the four-color printing process". Why not print the closest possible and mark these as approximations rather than having nothing?
Like all color charts these are pretty to look at and enticing, but how much practical use will the book truly get? I guess it depends on the degree to which you internalize your knowledge of colors and brands, but I don't see why you'd pay so much for it rather than using your own knowledge and manufacturer's color charts. Sure the latter aren't color perfect, but acquiring instinctive knowledge of tones and colors is part of mastering any medium. I don't recall ever hearing about Degas having a color chart.
