You just need a small pea sized amount of each of each colour your pallet - you don't need very much paint all:

 

Primary Colours

Yellow

Red/Pink

Blue (Cerulean or Ultra Marine Blue)

 

Plus any convenience colours you’d like

 

Remember -     Red, blue and yellow are the primaries - you cannot make these colours but you can makes many others from them
 

            Blue and Yellow = Green

            Red and blue = purple

            Yellow and red/pink = orange

 

When wet, all primaries together make grey/brown colour.  So, you need to be mindful of this if you want a vibrant painting. 

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Ultramarine blue plus burnt sienna makes a great warm grey
 

Ultramarine blue and burnt umber make a lovely rich ‘almost’ black colour

            

There is no white in watercolour,  the white comes from the paper.  

To lighten a colour add more water

 

Yellow is the weakest colour.  When using yellow to make a colour always start with yellow and add tiny bits of the other colour till you get your desired result

 

When mixing with red, do so sparingly, as it’s so strong.

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Complimentary colour schemes

These sing together  and you'll be familiar blue and orange,  yellow and purple, and red and green.

Complimentary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel.

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If you're keeping things vibrant it's important to dry the first colour completely before adding its compliment on top.  This should be slightly thicker paint to prevent reactivating the first colour.

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​However, mixing complimentary colours together is very useful.  It allows us tone down (desaturate) a colour.  For example, adding a tiny bit of red to green,  will give you a lovely natural green colour.   One that you will actually find in nature.

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Next steps

If you would like to practice some colour mixing exercises using the wet into wet and wet on dry methods, please visit these links below:
 

Wet into wet

 

https://www.kerryslackart.com/wet-in-wet-watercolour-blobs

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Wet on dry (layering)

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https://www.kerryslackart.com/single-post/wet-on-dry-watercolour-technique