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I have a sand/grit type material that I want to use for basing my models. It is mostly greyish with a maybe reddish hue (though it doesn’t jump out and wouldn’t look good for any kind of Martian red sand).

I plan to paint my models dark—black and grey. So, I’d rather have them stand out against the color of the basing materials. Does anyone have any advice on painting the sand so it would be yellow or tan? My worry is along the lines of priming dark and wanting to paint lights colors/vice versa. Or, should I abandon this idea and find some yellow sand?

For sand bases I usually use a coat of dark/medium brown and then drybrush over it with Vallejo Iraqi sand. If it needs anything more I'll hit it with brown ink and another drybrush.

I wouldn't worry too much about priming it tbh.

Just paint it. If you're using a sand colour you won't need to worry about pigment issues, and if there is, just use more layers.

At least for GW paints I can say progressing from black primer to light sand color is not a problem. It's a good idea to give the sand a solid coat of medium to dark brown anyway as it will seal the sand and make it more robust. After that you won't have to worry about any black shiny through. This mostly determines the color of the recessed areas. Also consider that you can't really use watered down paint on a sandy surface without ruining the shading. You will automatically end up getting enough pigment on the grains.Sand is pretty easy to work with in that regard as the individual grains don't have enough surface area for layering multiple colors. If you put paint on them, that's what they're going to look like.

Example Star Wars model that was primed black:

You could paint the models separately from the bases and just glue them to the bases later.

That way you can glue sand to the base, and prime the sand with primer spray paint of whatever starting color you desire. You’ll save a lot of time this way, rather than trying to build up a light tan / yellow color over black primed bases.

I love the combination of oil washing and drybrushing for sand.

My Black Templars have a pale yellow sand base (check the link in my signature if ya want a sample) and I prime mini and base black, and work the sand up from black through brown to yellow, and have always been pretty happy with the results. Honestly, unpainted texture - sand especially - I find a bit of a jarring contrast with a painted mini, and it's never sat right with me.

Painting up from dark colours worked for the old masters, so it's good enough for me!

I usually finish painting the model and then apply thinned glue with a brush to those parts of the base that should be sandy. Then I dip the base in a cup of fine sand that sticks to the base. When it is dry I directly apply thinned Zamesi Desert followed by Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed Zamesi. The result looks like this: