The Pastel Colour Wheel Book
Another in this series for artists that includes a colour wheel incorporated into the front cover. Whilst I do not think that the colour wheel is of immense use, the information within this book will guide the new or beginner pastel artist through all the techniques. Eight projects will teach you all you need to know. Discover how to use pastels, what effects you can achieve and much more in this useful and compact book. It's a good size for taking with you when you travel.-KarenPlatt.co.uk This excellent book begins with an explanation of how to use the handy interactive colour wheel included on the front of the book to help learn about colour properties and mixing secondary colours from primary colours. However even with this knowledge buying as many pastels as you can afford, as John advises, and adding to the range later as you progress will help your artwork. Although all artists should learn the principles of colour mixing and pastels can be mixed, its far better to have the colour ready to hand in a stick rather than try to mix it from others. As pastels are applied direct to the paper its difficult to achieve the colour you want by mixing without losing the wonderful vibrancy and freshness that makes pastel paintings so attractive. John continues with a useful overview of other materials needed, mainly different types of papers and a few simple tools. He then moves on to describe some basic techniques needed to begin pastel painting such as mark making, cross hatching and colour blending. These are accompanied by some simple but very useful exercises to follow. The following gallery section contains some examples of pastel paintings that have used the medium in different ways showing just how versatile pastels can be. They vary from loose attractive landscapes, tightly rendered buildings to an incredibly realistic painting of stones and shells. The book gives eight step by step projects using the techniques explained. They take a range of subjects from still life to landscape and cover various forms of using the materials including stippling, using the pastel as a drawing tool, colour blending and highlights and shadows. John sets out with each project exactly what is needed and what skills are to be utilized The steps are very clearly set out and photographed and John constantly adds little tips to enhance the work. Having worked through these demonstrations you will have learned an excellent grounding in techniques needed to be able to produce your own rewarding and delightful paintings. This is an excellent book for artists wishing to further their pastel skills.-JeannieZelos.com The format of this series is becoming familiar and the idea is that you can use the 8 projects, which include full-colour step by step demonstrations, in conjunction with the colour wheel built into the front cover. Yes, it's a gimmick, but sometimes gimmicks concentrate the mind and, with the emphasis here on relatively simple combinations of colours, you can explore the possibilities of the medium, freed from at least one layer of complication. If there's a gripe, it's that the paper chosen makes the illustrations look dull which is, it has to be said, a neat trick when the medium is the pure colour of pastel.-Artbookreview.net Also up on this site you can find reviews of John Barber's two previous books in this series, The Watercolor Wheel Book and The Oil Paint Color Wheel Book.  Now here is a third volume, this time showing you how to use your pastels.  How these books differ from ordinary color wheel theory books is that they actually have a wheel on the cover that you can rotate and align to see what you get if you mix two colors together. Maybe you are thinking that because pastels are in stick form rather than liquid you do not actually mix them, but you do - just in a different way.  Like this other two titles this book is aimed mostly at the beginner to pastels, telling you the basics and then giving you a few projects to work through.  Learn how to blend the colors together to make new shades, as well as different ways of doing this and of applying the color.  These are SOFT pastels by the way, not the oil variety and the insturcitons and projects really bring out the soft, gentle tones of these chalky, tactile crayons.  This book also contains a section on how to use the color wheel on the cover, as well as the inevitable early chapter on what you need to buy if you want to take up this hobby in a full-blown manner.  This includes the different forms pastels come in and how they differ. The rest of the book is filled with projects, which show you in a number of stages how to create a certain picture while teaching you a couple of new techniques each time which are helpfully listed underneath.  I like the way the pastels you need are also listed, and the lesson you are learning is explained first before you start on the picture.  The pictures depict a winter sunset, cliffs in sunlight, a still life, flower study, seascapes and more. As with the other titles in this series this is a good book for any beginner or improver.-Myshelf.com