Prehistoric cave paintings in southern France, Spain and South Africa demonstrate that mankind's earliest colored paintings used red, white and ochre earth pigments and burnt bone to create images that remain vital to this day.

The Italian Renaissance masters used red chalk to do architectural and engineering drawings.

Chalk in a range of colors from white to dark reddish brown had been used to develop studies for oil paintings, but rarely as an end in itself.

Leonardo da Vinci, for example, used chalks for some of his figure studies for his frescos and larger paintings.

Depending on whom you believe, the name pastel either comes from the French word pastiche, meaning pure powdered pigment ground into a paste with a small amount of gum binder, or from the Italian pastello, meaning material made into a paste.

"The Chanter," also by Yokouchi, was honored with a platinum award. Pastel Artists of Hawai'i

Pastel allows the artist to apply dry pigment directly to canvas or paper. Dry pigment sticks are stroked across an abrasive ground, embedding the color in the "tooth" of the paper, sand board or canvas.

If the ground is completely covered, the finished piece is considered a pastel painting, whereas leaving much of the ground exposed produces a pastel sketch.

Pastel never became as popular as the more traditional oil or watercolor media.

Into the 18th century, chalk and charcoal continued to be the materials of choice for most sketching, with measured additions of pastel for color.

At that point, several artists began working exclusively in pastel, treating it as one would oils.

Mark Norseth's portrait, "Autumn," won an award of excellence at the Pastel Artists of Hawai'i juried exhibition. Mark Norseth

French painter Chardin turned to open-stroke pastels in later life when his eyesight began to fail, and French portraitist Maurice-Quentin De La Tour — one of the most celebrated artists of his era — favored a blended finish.

By the mid-to late-19th century, pastel came into its own, with many well-known Impressionists and post-Impressionists such as Manet, Monet, Cassatt, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso using pastel's rich colors and luminous qualities to great effect.

Odilon Redon used pastel to create mystical works that prefigured Surrealism.

Perhaps the most famous pastelist of all was the French painter Edgar Degas with his paintings of ballet dancers and scenes from the race track.

For much of the 20th century, pastel was considered second-tier, the province of artistically inclined people — particularly women — with time on their hands.

This show will not change this perception.

The work is traditional, nothing breakthrough or astonishing.

It is best appreciated for the range of effects the artists have coaxed from the medium.

Pastel, even though popular in beginning art classes, is not easy, and mistakes or changes of heart are difficult — sometimes impossible — to correct.

The technique lends itself to plein air, or outdoor painting, because an artist can work quickly and directly, needing only paper, pastels and a sure hand.

As a medium, pastel offers the artist spontaneity and versatility.

It is a consistently opaque medium of the purest pigment, which reflects light only from the surface.

Unlike most other media, pastel can be applied immediately over dark and opaque, or light and transparent surfaces on any number of oil-free, toothed surfaces (known as grounds) and offers a greater range of color and textural subtlety.

The exhibition — which underscores the medium's reliance on assured placement of color, informed by uncompromising vision — features for the pastel novice an informative display of the variety of grounds available.

The medium also has its share of traps — like watercolor — including the fear of taking risks, using the wrong ground, lack of variety in application, filling the tooth (how much pastel pigment the ground will hold) too fast, staying too close to middle values, over-blending and overworking.

Recent years have seen a proliferation of pastel artists' societies that have launched a kind of new renaissance of pastel, including such groups as the Pastel Society of America in New York City and regional/national pastel societies such as the Degas Pastel Society and the Pastel societies of the West Coast, Southwest, Northwest, Oregon and‚ more recently, the Pastel Artists of Hawai'i.

Helen C. Iaea, a well-known local pastel/watercolor artist, established the nonprofit in 2001 to promote public awareness and appreciation of soft pastels as a serious medium, encourage pastel artists, provide educational activities, and to develop and maintain a national society standing.

The organization's annual juried exhibition is open to all, members and nonmembers alike, with only a small difference in entry fees.

Awards, designed to reward and encourage artists to do their best, are given for the best works.

For this second outing, Pastel Artists of Hawai'i tapped Desmond O'Hagan as a guest juror.

A multi-award winning master artist with the Pastel Society of America, O'Hagan is listed in "Who's Who in American Art," "The Best of Pastel" and "Best of Pastel II," and has been featured in many national and international art magazines. His work is found in public and private collections worldwide.

The lobby exhibition space is less than ideal, although the arts community is certainly grateful that downtown public spaces such as Pauahi Tower are being made available.

Although a perhaps necessary fact of exhibition life, the presence of glass over all the works deprives the viewer of the pleasure of seeing clearly the sometimes delicious sense of touch that accomplished pastels communicate.

The works run the usual inclusive gamut from inspired to primitive, with the joy of creating evident throughout.

Award winners include Mei Ki Kam's wonderfully evocative landscape "Local Resident" (grand prize award), Anna Noriak's "Etruscan Benediction" (first prize), Bridgette Adams' "The Red Hat" (second prize) and Ginny Walden's "Cockroach Cove" (third prize).

Juror's merit award winners included Fred Domingo's lively and well-designed "Koiference" and Joan Fidel's "Spring."

Honorable mentions went to Bridgette Adams' accomplished portrait "Princess of Polynesia," Sena Bozlee's "Hula Blossom," Fong Ling's "A Plate with Tulip Design," Antoinette Martin's "Dawn," Kathleen Yokouchi's skillful "I Am No. 3" and Ela Zapf's "Mother Earth."

Mark Norseth's portrait "Autumn" took an award of excellence, and Yokouchi's impressionistic "The Chanter" was honored with a platinum award.

Equally outstanding are Zapf's risk-taking mixed-media "Moulin Rouge," Jeffrey Dunn's darkly disturbing "From the Earth" and Nancy Lea Jackson's sensitively rendered "Break Time."

This is a must-see show if you love pastel.