The tube colors are certainly most convenient, especially for beginners, who have not yet learned the exact proportions of oil required in preparing them to use. This knowledge comes only with experience, but is soon acquired. The colors in tubes, in course of time, if left unused, will become hard and unmanageable until reground with fresh oil. They are in no way injured when the is had dried out, leaving them hard, for they do not deteriorate with age ; but it is uninteresting and tedious work to get them back again into a manageable condition.
Those in the dry powder remain in a perfect condition for an indefinite time.
While it requires a little more time in the first place to get them into proper condition, they are in the end, perhaps, a trifle more economical and cleaner to handle ; but the minimum of money saved about equals the maximum of time and labor bestowed.
After all, it is a question of individual preference. The professional decorator in the factory invariably uses powder colors. Perhaps it would be easier for the beginner to buy tube colors, as they are ready to use ; later on, a good plan would be to have some of both,---those in daily use in tubes, those used occasionally in powder.
Owing to the wide range of colors, the amateur
