What an absolutely exquisite book. Having just received a digital copy, I flipped through it and immediately fell in love - what an array of amazing work, so much of it almost impossible to believe was achieved with pastels, looking rather like the finest oil painting or photographic work. Astonishing.

Any ‘instruction’ comes in the form of the commentary on each work, and already, in the hour I have spent looking at these wonderful works I’ve picked up a number of tips that I had no idea about, such as using an oil under wash to give an initial tone to the picture.

A very inspirational book, for the first time in years I’m inspired to dig out my old set of pastels and set to work. Beautiful, inspirational, fascinating book. I’ll be reading and browsing this one for a long time.

Pure Pastel by Anne Hevener is an amazing book for anyone interested in pastel drawing / painting. The book is full of beautifully detailed examples, tips, & information to help anyone either get started or possibly learn something new even if you have some experience with using pastels.

I loved the beautiful artwork pictures throughout the book, and it is very easy to follow even for anyone who might not have experimented with pastels in the past. Highly recommend.

What a beautiful book,

Edited by Anne Hevener, Pure Pastel showcases many stunning works of art, solely completed using Pastel’s. In my naïveté I had no idea how versatile this medium is and there are some wonderful pictures from Andrew McDermott’s China Shop Lights ( which i have to reminded me a little of Bladerunner) to Ron Momsma’s Three Oranges.....just marvellous.

Each picture has a little description by the artist, with their inspiration behind it...so clever and give such an insight in to how an artist sees things.

A lovely, lovely book

I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

Pure pastel, pure pleasure. It's a collection of high quality artwork from top artists, some of them I know from artistsnetwork.com like Wende Caporale, Richard McKinley, Daniel E. Greene, Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Desmond O’Hagan, Dawn Emerson and others. Many artists, many styles, from impressionism and alla prima to realism. It's a coffee table book with very little text, no instruction unfortunately. It's suitable for all who simply want to enjoy beautiful artwork.

Beautiful and inspiring from cover to cover. Love the diversity in style and subject matter. I was rather hoping this would be more instructional, but it will make a lovely addition to the collection.

Wow! What a beautiful selection of contemporary pastel works. This showcase book is like walking around a gallery. The chapters focus on Colour and Light; Composition and Design; Mood and Atmosphere; Style and Expression and finally, Concept and Story. There is a wide variety of landscapes, seascapes, still life, observational drawing... the list goes on. This would make a fantastic coffee table book, but more importantly a very inspiring book for anyone interested in pursuing the art of pastel drawing. Thank you to Net galley and the publisher, North Light Books.

What a beautiful display of some of today's best contemporary pastel artists.
There's a but for everyone in here, portraits, landscapes, animals and abstract art.
Perfect for the coffee table and to look up artist's information.

I have always been fascinated by work done in pastels, I just cant image how such detail can be captures by these wonderful sticks of pure color. The book is fabulous with one described piece of work, mostly, on each page, it is separated into sections. These include Color/light, composition/design, mood/atmosphere, style/expression and concept/story.
Some seem so raw, others are photo-like and others, still beautifully captured in technique, color and blending - all very beautiful, all worthy of praise from this book, too many of which I would love to own.

This book is perfect for people that love art and like to be immersed in it. It is best to have a physical copy though as if you are reading it online, you can't read the artist information and the description of the work unless you zoom in which is not always possible, depending on whichever programme you opened the file with.