One of the things I’ve discovered as I’ve played with paint is the magic of gray. I remember trying to learn to paint with oil paint, and all that I would end up with were muddy paintings.
But gray is a color that neutralizes the bright primaries. The red, blue and yellow that comes from a tube of paint is pretty rare in nature when you look at the world around us. Those three colors are tempered by gray, everywhere we look. And unless you paint, you probably don’t notice it.
I certainly didn’t — until I tried to paint what I saw outdoors. And almost overnight, that mud I hated, became gorgeous. Cool blue grays, warm red violets, sage and khaki green. And there are a gazillion grays. Far more than any other color.
Seeing those modulated grays help make those purer other colors evident. Subtle. Simple. Gray.
