I've played around with multitudes of variations but I like to have the double color palette which consists of Thalo Blue/ French Ultramarine Blue/ Permanent Red/ Burnt Sienna/ Yellow Ochre/ Cad Yellow Light and of course Titanium White. I sometimes limit these colors by leaving some off and occasionally I may add a color but mostly to use up some of the excess colors I purchased over time. I can get by quite adequately with my 9 tubes.