Build a limited palette

Fewer tubes means every color is mixed from the same few pigments, so the whole painting hangs together. It's cheaper, lighter to carry outdoors, and it teaches you mixing faster than any other exercise: you learn what each pigment can and can't do.

No single red, yellow and blue mixes everything cleanly. A red that leans orange makes bright oranges but muddy violets; one that leans blue does the opposite. Keeping a warm and a cool version of each primary lets you mix clean color anywhere on the wheel by choosing the two that lean toward each other.

• Clean oranges: warm yellow + warm red.
• Clean violets: cool red + warm blue (ultramarine).
• Clean greens: cool yellow + cool blue (phthalo).
• Rich darks and greys: mix complements, such as burnt sienna or a warm red with ultramarine, rather than reaching for black.

• Start from single-pigment tubes: mixtures already contain two or three pigments and get muddy faster.
• Mix value first (light and dark), then temperature (warm and cool), then intensity.
• Add a color only when you keep wishing you had it. An earth like yellow ochre or burnt sienna is the most common first addition.
• Phthalos and quinacridones are very strong: start with a tiny amount in any mix.