Category: Original Artwork by Judith Reeve

Maine and the Dominance of Grays

Judith Reeve, Evening Surf, 12 x 16, oil on board.

This past month, I spent a significant amount of time painting in Maine, as far Northeast as I could manage by car. Here, there are few tourists and much quietude. The elemental space of sea and cliffs brings me back to myself. I am consoled by its sheer force and power to evoke metaphysical thoughts, recentering me.

The rock formations in this area are dominated by grays, whereas further South, Acadia is formed by warm-toned rock; Lubec’s rocks are cool and neutral. It has taken me several years to achieve the quality of the coloring of these rock heads stretching out into the Bay of Fundy. I found that the Bi colors and Hues, in several combinations, facilitated the accuracy of what I witnessed.

My landscape palette is the Full Spectrum Palette [see The Color Investigations of Robert Henri, Vol. 1, Chapters 5, 7, and 8], balanced and harmonized by the complete integration of the primaries within the secondary and tertiary mixes [top line of root notes]. This includes the second line of Bi colors and the third line of Hues. When painting en plein air, I do not premix lines 2 and 3, except for the Y Hue [line 3]. The reason for this is: 1) I’m inherently familiar with the Full Spectrum Palette and reflexively can mix the combinations; 2) I like to mix between some of the intervals on the Bi color line to get subtle variety; 3) I also like to not fully mix these colors, but allow the 2 notes that make up the mixture to loosely flow together- sometimes emphasizing one color over another- visually joining within the viewer’s mind. I find this adds a hidden vitality to the painting. All this is possible because the palette is already harmonized before I commence painting.

Attempting to capture the color of the evening light before the rock formation is plunged into shadow.

The rocky heads along the Bay of Fundy are primarily gray with mixes of violet-red or a dull yellow in some places. The difficulty lies in conveying the rock’s warm illumination while retaining its inherent grayness. As the quality of the illumination changes, capturing the gray underlying the dominant color of the light becomes challenging.

Judith Reeve, Morning Reflections, 12 x 16, oil on board.

I found the most effective way to deal with this was to first mix my gray combinations, both warms and cools, then add my dominant light mix in increments to these base grays. [Henri referred to the dominant light as the lightener; see The Color Investigations of Robert Henri, Vol. 1, p.79] The color of the lightener varied with the quality of the day and the time- morning, afternoon, or evening. In the painting Morning Reflections, the rising sun, dominated by RO, was slowly giving way to a GB quality as it rose higher. The image retains the warmth in the sky but accentuates the greener/cooler reflected light in the shadows. In Dispersing Fog, the warmth of the morning sun is held by the fog, giving the scene a pearlescent quality with the cool shadows and gray-violet sea.

Judith Reeve, Dispersing Fog, 12 x 16, oil on board.

Here are some of the semi-neutralized mixtures I found most effective for adding variety to the grays. [see The Color Investigations of Robert Henri, Vol. 1, p. 49]

The cools:

  • G + BV [GBB Bi]
  • G + V [B hue]
  • G + VR [near-complement]
  • GB + BV [B Bi]
  • GB + V [BBV Bi]
  • GB + VR [BVV Bi]
  • OY + BV [Neutral]
  • O + BV [near-complement]

The warms:

  • RO + GB [neutral]
  • RO + G [near- complement]
  • O + G [Y hue]
  • O + V [R hue]

You may say that these combinations are not gray enough! But it is key that the image feels illuminated by the sun, whether it is clear, cloudy, or foggy. Color conveys the sensation of illumination. No color, no quality of light.

Brilliancy is going toward color, not toward white.

Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, p.260

Note the dominance of the secondaries: O, G, V. Also, G, GB, BV, and V were key. Many of the grays were combinations of these 4 notes. Most of these notes were raised in value by white or by the lightener [such as O + VR + white as an example in Dispersing Fog].

Achieving a variety in these grays was challenging and part of the beauty of painting along the Bay of Fundy- dream like and mysterious.

Developing the Bi Colors

Judith Reeve, Maple, Snowfall, 12 x 9, oil on board.

In my book “The Color Investigations of Robert Henri,” I explore the Bi Colors in Chapter 7, Expansion of the Spectrum Palette. Henri expressed in his notebooks that the Bi Colors are the most important because they are the ones you use most often in representational painting. These 15 Bi Colors [found in Vol. 1, p. 49] fall between the root notes of the Full Spectrum Palette at the highest intensity and those of the 6 Hues, which are colors that approach a neutral while still maintaining a dominant color. So the Bi Colors are semi-neutrals containing a portion of a complementary pair.

If we take, for example, RO Bi made from R + YG, one can observe that the complementary pair of R andG neutralize this mixture, creating a RO that is lower in intensity. But the R and Y still dominate, maintaining the RO color. If we reflect on this mixture in another way, we can observe that the YG is a near-complement to the R, just next to the direct complement G on a chromatic circle. Not all the Bi Colors follow near-complementary relationships. But what is always expressed is a dominant color that is semi-neutralized through a complementary pair.

Judith Reeve, The Bi Colors, The Color Investigations of Robert Henri, Volume 1, p. 49.

The R-Y-B Bi Colors follow a color’s scale. R Bi is made with VR + RO. These colors immediately surround R on the Full Spectrum and therefore have a strong R component in their mix. The R residing in both the VR and RO. The B in the VR and the O in the RO form a complementary pair that semi-neutralizes the mixture. Note that there are no secondary Bi Colors. Both Henri and Maratta felt that they were unnecessary. And once you mix the Bi Colors, you can see that the secondary combinations come very close in hue to their neighbors.

The easiest way to mix the Bi Colors is to start with the primary Bi Colors, then move on to the tertiary Bi Colors. Leave the quaternary Bi Colors [such as VRR] for last, as these combinations are very subtle and need to be placed between their primary and tertiary partners. If your Full Spectrum Palette is balanced- all complementary pairs neutralize one another- then the mixing of the Bi Colors is pretty straightforward. Just follow the list I provide on p. 49. Note that although, I am providing a list of the Bi Colors, these Bi Colors can be made with other combinations of colors. An example would be an elaboration of a Major or Minor Chord. A Chord is its own set limitation and the Bi Colors, in this case, must be composed of some combination of the root notes of the Chord. If I compare the Bi Colors in the list with those that are mixed within a Chord, I will find that they are closely related in color and tone, but may have been mixed from other combinations. But note, they are clearly related.

Last week, during one of the many snowfalls that we have had in the Catskills this winter, I painted my neighbor’s maple tree. In this study, I used the Bi Colors almost entirely. I did dip down into the B, R and Y Hue and up into the BV color of the top line of the Full Spectrum. But the main combinations came from the Bi Color line. I used the GBB, BBV, BV, and the VR extensively. I also used the RRO for the warm tones in the sky and the snow. I used the Y and R Hue for the grasses and the BV + White [from the top line of root colors] for the snow sitting on the large branches. Observe that with some combinations, such as VR, GB + R, I allowed that combination to sit side by side on the left trunk rather than completely mix them together. The choice of application is up to the painter.

What I find intensely gratifying about the Bi Colors is that they are less definable and more subtle than using the root colors from the top line. They are beautifully harmonized, and they take less mixing- I can grab a Bi Color and add some white, and I am there, without excessive mixing or deliberating my choice. The Bi Colors are exquisite, having a jewel-like quality; the difference between B Bi and BBV Bi is a soft shift in tone and color temperature. The more I’ve worked with the Bi Colors, the more tuned my color perception has become.

I hope you can increase the color quality of your tones by experimenting with these Bi Colors. You will not be disappointed!

The Color Investigations of Robert Henri, Vols. 1 & 2

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