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Unison Colour Unison Colour Soft Pastels are handmade using the finest traditional pigments. John Hersey was born in 1925. To their surprise there was an immediate interest.

Unison Colour Pastels have been used by professional artists around the world for the last 30 years, and we continue to make our pastels in the Northumbrian countryside. He was a student at the Byam Shaw School of art in London where he won a Rome Scholarship and lived in Italy for several years. On returning to the UK he ran his own business ‘Fine Art Photography’ while continuing with his own work. Over the years he became more and more interested in, and passionate about, colour. Following many years of not finding a pastel he was happy with, John decided to make his own. After years of experimenting, the soft pastels that you know and love today, were created and Unison Colour was born. Manufactured pastels available on the market broke easily, were not consistent in texture and did not mirror our requirments for the perfect pastel. For several years John worked on methods of production, colour sequences and the texture of his pigment mixtures. In 1987 he decided to offer the results to fellow pastellists. John and his wife Kate took the original range of colour sets (then just 117 pastels!), and the kitchen dresser, to an art materials show in London. To start with, the pastels were all made in the coach house at Thorneyburn in the Northumberland National Park. This served as a great base from which to grow. It allowed time to refine the pastels, develop new lines and increase the pastel base from 117 to 380 pastel colours. As the years progressed, sales grew nationally and the Unison Colour brand continued to grow and be recognised by artists as the preferred pastel of choice. Eventually, sales expanded into Europe. USA, Canada, and Australia followed a few years later. The Unison Colour brand developed worldwide recognition. It became the gold standard of soft pastels and cemented the brand amongst the art community. The quality of our pastels attracted the attention of an array of artists, many of whom run workshops which highlight the benefits of using our pastels over alternatives. We have developed a long standing partnership with those artists who help promote our products and help fine tune our recipes to make them the very best in the world. In 2017 we launched our Associate Artist Programme. The programme continues to grow and now contains over 200 artists from around the world.

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: July 2026By Nina Squire"One pleasure of the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community is never qu...
24/08/2026

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: July 2026
By Nina Squire

"One pleasure of the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community is never quite knowing what will appear next. A quiet landscape may sit beside a bright floral, a first pastel beside an established artist’s work, and a technical question may become a conversation between people across the world."

"When I was invited to choose ten July posts that caught my eye, I wanted to capture that variety. As others have said, it’s surprisingly hard to choose just 10. I have enjoyed an opportunity to enjoy all that you’ve shared in July. You’ve been very busy! I deliberately included some names I don’t see as often, alongside artists whose work I have long admired. Some posts attracted me through colour or composition; others through the story behind them. Together, they celebrate what soft pastel can do and the warmth of our Unison Colour community where people feel able to experiment, ask questions and share at every stage of their journey."

Read Nina's blog at...
https://www.unisoncolour.com/blog/eye-catchers-july-2026/

#🎨🖌 #🎨 #🧑‍🎨

One pleasure of the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community is never quite knowing what will appear next. A quiet landscape may sit beside a bright floral, a first pastel beside an established artist’s work, and a technical question may become a conversation between people across the world.

Who's watching the solar eclipse this evening? ☀️ Remember to watch in a safe way, like we did in 2015 through a pinho...
12/08/2026

Who's watching the solar eclipse this evening? ☀️ Remember to watch in a safe way, like we did in 2015 through a pinhole in a piece of card, against some Grey 28 pastels!

And once the sun goes down, if you're feeling inspired, we have a collection of cosmic colours in our Dark Skies 8 Half Stick set. 💫

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: June 2026By Nigel Smith"How lovely to be asked to take some time to look at peoples’ fabulous p...
12/08/2026

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: June 2026
By Nigel Smith

"How lovely to be asked to take some time to look at peoples’ fabulous pieces of art and talk about why they grab your attention. As the two people who’ve read my blogs know, I probably sit on the edges of the Unison Colour Facebook Community as an outsider artist, with a style and taste that is probably a bit more leftfield than most. So, for this blog, I suspended ‘nearly’ all that style, taste (or lack of) and judgement to pick out which pieces spoke to me.

Big shout out to everyone who submitted a piece of art in June. It’s not an easy thing to do to bare your creative soul to the world, let alone a bunch of artists!"

Read our blog at...
https://www.unisoncolour.com/blog/eye-catchers-june-2026/

How lovely to be asked to take some time to look at peoples’ fabulous pieces of art and talk about why they grab your attention.

[NEW BLOG] Unison Colour “Eyecatchers” – First Year WinnersBy Unison Colour"One of the great joys for the Unison Colour ...
24/07/2026

[NEW BLOG] Unison Colour “Eyecatchers” – First Year Winners
By Unison Colour

"One of the great joys for the Unison Colour Team is to see the wonderful work produced with our pastels. The team here in Northumberland are dedicated to producing the finest pastels and it is wonderful to see both the diversity and quality of artwork produced with them."

"For the last 12 months we asked a variety of our Associate Artists to pick 10 Eyecatchers each month from all the pastels posted to the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community Facebook Group. We asked the Associates Artists to pick those that really caught the eye rather than just those that were the most technically perfect."

Read our blog at...
https://www.unisoncolour.com/blog/unison-colour-eyecatchers-first-year-winners/

A heads up that Amy Shuckburgh's 'Where We Meet' exhibition runs for one more day, and is online for a few more weeks......
03/07/2026

A heads up that Amy Shuckburgh's 'Where We Meet' exhibition runs for one more day, and is online for a few more weeks...

Artist Amy Shuckburgh presents Where We Meet at MADE in the Pewsey Vale from 25 June to 4 July 2026. The London-based painter draws much of her inspiration from rural and urban landscapes, with two further exhibitions taking place in Wiltshire and Somerset this summer. Bringing together around a dozen large-scale works, the exhibition features expressive interpretations of well-trodden paths across London and beyond, rendered through restless pastel marks and vivid colour combinations.

Find out more at the following link...
www.unisoncolour.com/blog/exhibition-where-we-meet-by-amy-shuckburgh/

#🎨🖌 #🎨 #🧑‍🎨

Artist Amy Shuckburgh presents Where We Meet at MADE in the Pewsey Vale from 25 June to 4 July 2026. The London-based painter draws much of her inspiration from rural and urban landscapes, with two further exhibitions taking place in Wiltshire and Somerset this summer.

[NEW BLOG] Art & AI: The Good, The Bad And The Middle GroundBy Tricia Findlay"As pastel artists, we are deeply connected...
26/06/2026

[NEW BLOG] Art & AI: The Good, The Bad And The Middle Ground
By Tricia Findlay

"As pastel artists, we are deeply connected to the 'physical.' There is a unique joy in the resistance of the paper, the dusty residue on our fingertips, and that unmistakable buttery glide of a Unison Colour soft pastel. Our medium is ancient, tactile, and grounded."

"So, when we talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI), it can feel a bit like an I’ll wind blowing in a studio full of loose pigment - disruptive, perhaps even a little alarming. But as the dust settles, many artists are finding that AI doesn’t have to be a replacement for the hand. Instead, it can be a surprisingly helpful assistant in the 'pre-work' that leads to a masterpiece."

Read Tricia's blog at...
www.unisoncolour.com/blog/art-ai-the-good-the-bad-and-the-middle-ground-by-tricia-findlay

As pastel artists, we are deeply connected to the "physical." There is a unique joy in the resistance of the paper, the dusty residue on our fingertips, and that unmistakable buttery glide of a Unison Colour soft pastel. Our medium is ancient, tactile, and grounded.

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: May 2026By Gareth Jones"I’m grateful to be asked again by Unison Colour, to be the guest select...
16/06/2026

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: May 2026
By Gareth Jones

"I’m grateful to be asked again by Unison Colour, to be the guest selector for the ten paintings that have caught my eye in the Unison Colour Facebook Community during the month of May."

"Never an easy task, as it’s such a diverse range of subjects and styles, but it’s also an enjoyable opportunity to slow down and observe the posts a little more carefully."

Read Gareth's blog at...
www.unisoncolour.com/blog/eye-catchers-may-2026-by-gareth-jones

I’m grateful to be asked again by Unison Colour, to be the guest selector for the ten paintings that have caught my eye in the Unison Colour Facebook Community during the month of May.

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: April 2026By Fiona Carvell"Thank you to Stephen Fuller for asking me to chose the Eyecatchers f...
08/05/2026

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: April 2026
By Fiona Carvell

"Thank you to Stephen Fuller for asking me to chose the Eyecatchers for April from the Unison Colour Facebook Community. Unison Colour pastels are my ‘go to’ pastels of choice – I love their texture and colour range. I was honoured to win the Unison Colour Members Award at The Pastel Society annual exhibition earlier this year, in London."

"As a member of the Pastel Society UK and Pastel Society of America, I am always interested in to see what pastel artists are up to online and it has been quite a challenge to whittle my choices down to just 10."

Read Fiona's blog at...
www.unisoncolour.com/blog/eye-catchers-april-2026-by-fiona-carvell

Thank you to Stephen Fuller for asking me to chose the Eyecatchers for April from the Unison Colour Facebook Community.

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: March 2026By Teresa Seals"What a privilege to be asked by Stephen Fuller to choose the Eyecatch...
20/04/2026

[NEW BLOG] Eye Catchers: March 2026
By Teresa Seals

"What a privilege to be asked by Stephen Fuller to choose the Eyecatchers for March 2026 from the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community page! It was tricky to limit it to just a few but here are some that caught my eye..."

Read Teresa's blog at...
www.unisoncolour.com/blog/eye-catchers-march-2026-by-teresa-seals

Eye Catchers: March 2026By Teresa Seals20th April, 2026 What a privilege to be asked by Stephen Fuller to choose the Eyecatchers for March 2026 from the Unison Colour Soft Pastelling Community page! It was tricky to limit it to just a few but here are some that caught my eye: ‘Still Life’ by Reb...

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