120 Beautiful Colors

Creating a paint chart for Pure & Original Classico was a somewhat daunting project. Over 120 colors are available in this chalk based paint, although the color card only shows 118. To see the additional colors go to their USA website.

All of the Pure and Original colors are available for Classico so it seemed the best place to start. Their other paints available in the USA are Fresco Lime, and Marrakech. Any particular color can look quite different in each paint. I hope eventually to do a comparison chart showing each color in each of the three paints, but first things first.

My first task was to get a sample of each and every color (Yikes!). Fortunately, the headquarters and warehouse for Pure & Original USA is located in Louisville, KY. John Darr and his wonderful team at the office and warehouse were extremely generous with their time and paint. Every time they would tint colors and fill sample sizes, they would save the remnants in the larger cans for me. Usually they fill samples once a week, although not very color each time. It took me over 2 months to collect a sample of all the colors.

I had a stack of cardboard that I cut into smaller sheets and painted each one a different color. These I scanned these into my computer and using Adobe Photoshop sampled and created a digital image. The colors are as true and accurate as possible, but a digital image can look different depending which device, and app you use to view it. I strongly suggest if you are contemplating a color, to purchase a hand painted color card and if its a big project, a tester of that color. A hand painted sample is the only way you can accurately choose paint color.

A side note: I love Adobe Photoshop, but took me years of graphic design to feel comfortable with it. It’s also very expensive. Adobe no longer sells the Photoshop program. It was expensive when you could purchase it, $650 for the latest version, but you could use that version for several years before you absolutely had to upgrade to a new one. Adobe has changed how it offers software. It’s only available through Adobe’s monthly subscription service. You can get a free 1 month trial, and an introductory rate for a year. But after that you are paying a minimum of $49 every month to use their software. Unless you are using it for business, it’s hard to justify. Photoshop used to be the only game in town but now there are several simpler photo editing programs available at the app store for free. Truly, if I hadn’t been using it for years ( I have an old version), I would not start at this point.

After I created images for each color, I tried several ways of arranging them into a helpful, pleasing color palette. This is my final version.

I also created tints of each Pure & Original chalk color by mixing with varying amounts of white.

As always, you can download, print, share these and any of my other charts for free as long as it is for personal use. My other charts include Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Tints, and Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Shades and Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint