Back To Basics

If you are like me, you have accumulated tubes of paint in a myriad of colors.  The instructor of every painting class I've taken has a preferred palette.  And of course, I go out and buy the colors I'm missing.  Developing the skill to create the "correct" color is my current quest, but I think all these tubes of paint are just a source of confusion.  So last weekend, I went back to the basics.  Cad Red Medium, Cad Yellow Light, Cobalt Blue, Black and White. 

My homework was a self portrait and I did all the skintones using these colors.  My decisions were simple;  make it warmer, cooler, darker or lighter.  Usually, my decisions were more complicated; do I add Cad Yellow Light or Naples Yellow.  As a side note, many of you were probably taught to remove black from your pallete and to make a chromatic black.  I don't know the chemistry behind how all those Windsor Newton colors are made, but I bet some are made by mixing black!!