What are the merits of tubes versus blocks of watercolour paints? I see that Alwyn uses blocks and illustrations in may art books tend to show these.

Alwyn Crawshaw replies: There is no difference in the paint - It's really a matter pf personal choice. I use blocks because I have got used to them over the years but I do always recommend beginners to use blocks (pans) rather than tubes because pans give you better control over the amount of paint that you get on your brush. Paint that has been squeezed from a tube is very soft and so it is easy to get too much paint on the brush, making colour-mixing difficult, creating frustration and wasting paint.