I have a handful of watercolour pads cases, some watercolour tubes and many watercolour pencils. Particularly I really like the pad format because it takes up little space and it's easy to transport and both things suit me perfectly.

When I started to use watercolour pads I found some problems. For one hand the pads were too hard for the soft watercolour brushes, so I worried for damaging my brushes. On the other hand pads were sometimes too dark, and it was difficult to discern colours.

As soon as I painted several times I found easy solutions for both problems. The first problem was as easy to solve as to spray water over the pads some minutes before painting. For this reason I always keep handy a small spray bottle with water next my watercolours. 

The second one is also easy but it requires some preparation beforehand. As you can see on the photo above I took a small and portable piece of paper and I painted all colours of my watercolour pads case in the same order on this watercolour paper. While it seems silly at first, it soon becomes a very useful pantone (colour charts). It helps with picking the correct color easily. After you have your first pantone, you wanna have another more complete pantone, including mixed colors. I found a video by esperoart channel in YouTube, really, really good to learn how to make your own. I recommend you watch it completely because it's totally worth it.

I hope you like it!