18 June, 2008

Book On Color

Here is a quick reference to the terrific Huechroval book that arrived a few days ago. This unique and thought-provoking reference book is based on a scientific measurement and comparison of 5,500 pastel sticks. The blurb given in Huechroval is, "Build Your Collection by Design, Not Accident".

I read with a critical eye, and am an enthusiastic supporter of this exhaustive tool for the serious pastelist. The benefit I will take from it is that I can accurately compare my jpegs and slides for jury against my actual artwork. As it is impossible to represent true pigments in the CMYK color space (photography & print) I am often frustrated when my art is represented incorrectly. This gem of a book actually lists the particular colors of pastel not rendered by CMYK. My tactic in the future will be to submit for jury those artworks that stay closest to the CMYK color space.

Thank you, Huechroval! A longer review will be forthcoming here at The Colorist.

Note: the book from publisher Huechroval is titled: "Multi-Brand Color Chart for Pastels".

4 comments:

jafabrit said...

That sounds like a fantastic book for you Casey. I am often amazed at how different one painting can look even from one computer to another (depending on the colour settings and browser).

Casey Klahn said...

There's that, and the physical impossibility of arriving at the pigment hues by mixing/overlapping lights (CMYK). I was amazed at the number of these blank squares that are used to represent these pigment-only colors.

Here is another head scratcher - Marie in Huechroval also identifies theoretical colors, based on a color model, that even pigments don't achieve.

MarieMeyer said...

Hi, its the author here. jafabrit, the variaition from screen-to-screen is almost always due to variations in how the monitors are set up/calibrated, not how the artwork was made in the first place. And Casey, I'd say the "unfilled" swatches in my book are not so much things that pigments can't achieve, as just things that the manufacturers happen to not be offering. If they really wanted to mix those colors, they could.

Casey Klahn said...

Thanks for checking in, Marie.

I'm looking forward to writing the full review, but blogging is nearer the back burner this week.

I couldn't put the book down the day I got it. Now, the long task of registering my own palette.

Abstract Expressionism, Art Criticism, Artists, Colorist Art, Drawing, History, Impressionism, Modern Art, Painting, Pastel, Post Impressionism