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Lara, I work from B&W photos all the time, even if, as I take the photos myself I can see the colours at least once.
The B&W is a very good opportunity to work on tones. Can you post your reference? Has it got a good lighting for painting or is it just all grey?
My suggestion is to start by mixing white, alizarine and yellow ochre, grey it down with some viridian and just put some brush marks on!
Mix your colours with a palette knife and just compare them TONALLY with your reference. Remember that the forehead is cooler than the cheeks, so add alittle more viridian. Warm cheeks mixture by using pale yellow cadmium instead of ochre make shadows warmer too.
Squint and look for the tone, remember that it is as important as the colour, and colour photo provide very little information about tones!
You will see that once you have started putting paint on your canvas you will start seeing your photo in colour, and which mixture use will look obvious!
Don't despair, post your work here if you want and I will try to help.
Ilaria
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