Limited Pallette work

Recently, thanks to a big kick from people from the Colored Pencil Forum at WetCanvas!, I have experimented with reducing my palette. Guess what? You do not need a box of 120 pencils. You certainly do not need several boxes of 120 plus others of 72, 108 and so on. You can actually get by very well with just three colours and white. As long as you pick the right colours of course. You need a red, a blue and a yellow. But which ones? Well, try them out. Pick a red, a yellow and a blue - the three primaries - and then try to mix the secondaries - orange, purple and green - using the ones you have picked. I will be willing to bet that you can get a green and an orange - but most of you will make a mucky grey rather than a purple. This is because the red you need is not obvious - until you think of printers inks - Cyan (Blue), Yellow and ???

Below are some of the pictures that I have done using a limited palette. Why do this, what is wrong with using 120 colours? Absolutely nothing, but it is very instructive to see colours in terms of their components - you start to think "I need a bit more red in this" rather than "I need another pencil". It saves time looking, but you do have to go over the same area more often, so it is slower. Try it out, to help you with your colour sense more than anything.