How to these compare to Winsor and Newton?

Winsor & Newton have two brands. The budget range 'Cotman' and the uncompromising *Professional' earlier known as 'Artist'. The selection of pigments in both Cotman and Professional is far superior in technical quality to White Nights. However, that might not really mean so much to every artist. White Nights are nice and all three ranges are valid choices. W&N Professional are significantly superior in every way. But they are also much more expensive. Painting with expensive paints is not psychologically conductive to the creative process for inexperienced artists. There is also a need to understand what pigment you are painting with and why. Something that comes with experience and education. So let's skip 'Professional' and compare Cotman and White Nights. White Nights generally feel very nice to paint with. They are soft and easily dissolvable. Cotman pans are rather hard, slow to pick up a lot of paint from and takes some time to learn to handle. Cotman pans are perhaps best suited for coloring drawings and like, rather than splashing on wet in wet. For more expressive style of painting with Cotman, you would want Cotman in tubes rather than pans. Even if you let them dry in blobs on your palette, because you can have big blobs that are easy to get color from. The modern Cotman range doesn't have any weaknesses when it comes to permanence. They all have good lightfastness. That is not the case with White Nights. They have a number of paints that are fugitive (like their 'Violet'), others that have not so good lightfastness, and a few that have some special weakness. But all is not bad. 'White Night' also have good, durable colors. Most of them are. A rough guide is to look at their own permanence rating. They are marked with anything from one star * to three stars ***. If you care about the lightfastness of your work, you should only use those marked with three stars. The others are not "lightfast" by Western standards. And even some of the *** marked paints have weaknesses. Use only 'Ruby' and 'Carmine' strongly, in full shades, not as light rose or as a weak partner in some mixture. In strong color it's good enough, but used weakly it will fade. If you consider that some of the "strong" (tinting strength) White Nights colors that some people are impressed with, are actually composed of cheap, fugitive, printing ink pigments, which should be avoided, and that White Nights are easier to pick up, the difference in coloring strength between White Nights and Cotman is not quite as great as it may seem at first. But the advantage still lies with White Night. Cotman seem cleaner though. Personally, I like the look of Cotman on the paper better, but as long as you are aware of the permanence issue and use only three star paints from White Nights, I'm leaning towards mostly recommending White Nights. Because they are nice and people tend to like them and that has positive consequences for their painting. Regardless what some say, neither Cotman nor White Nights are professional artist grade in the Western sense. Both are however fully suitable for professional artist work, and are used by some professional artists. Finally, know that some paints in White Night's range are more toxic than you find in Cotman. That doesn't really matter though. As long as you use them as intended - With a brush and water, on paper, for art -, then they are safe. If you don't, well, then Cotman aren't safe either. Don't paint with fingers, don't airbrush, don't paint on skin, don't give away as toys to children.

Are these paint 'blocks' able to set in place in the tray they come in, to be used straight from that tray? Or do they have nothing to hold in place?

I put a very small blob of kneaded blue tack under each pan, which holds them in place nicely.

what colours arein the box? I can see a representation but they're all wrapped.

You have a full range of colours in this set. It is very comprehensive

Do they dry permanent or can you still work with them even if they dry?

Individual Paint Pallets can be used (worked) after they dry. . . . Reworking after painting e.g. "lifting" colour after painting on paper depends upon whether it is a "Staining" or "Non Staining" colour, as with most water colour paints.These paints do not behave like "Acrylics" which must be kept moist during use and cannot be removed from either the canvas, or paper.Hope this answers your question.

Brand	White Nights
Model Number	271942258
Colour	White
Product Dimensions	15 x 5 x 20 cm; 453.59 g
Material	plastic
Special Features	Fade Resistant
Item Weight	454 g

White Nights Watercolour Whole Pans Set in Plastic Box, Pack of 36

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