Unison Colour is based in the Northumberland National Park. The business began in the early 1980s, when artist John Hersey found that mass-produced, factory made pastels simply did not offer the qualities he was looking for. He began an inquiry, to see whether, with the pigments available, he could construct some kind of mirror to the magic of color. Unison Colour Soft Pastels are the result.
Despite manufacturing over half a million individual sticks a year the pastels are still completely hand made and retain all the qualities of the originals. They are mixed to John’s meticulous recipes and are based on traditional pigments such as cadmiums, cobalts and natural and synthetic earths. The difference in the manufacturing process, hand rolling rather than extrusion, gives Unison Colour Soft Pastels a unique texture, delivering a consistency of response across the color spectrum that is unmatched and that is loved by artists.