Shifting Color & Light with Grays: Adobe, Bice

Shifting color and light in a mixture, Adobe and Bice offer a unique opportunity to change value and tone with grays as they also modify and soften for a sense of space and distance.

Add them to your palette for their colorful hues and subtle brightness, but use the distinctive warmth of Adobe or the pronounced coolness of Bice to push a color or mixture in a new direction.

Both Adobe and Bice are medium light in value and semi-opaque in mixing. Consequently each is able to effect a subtle change or a dramatic change depending upon how and where they are utilized.

Here are a few examples:

Bice shown at bottom left and Ultramarine Blue at bottom right. Our Ruby Violet is at the upper right.

The deep purple is mixed from our Ruby Violet and Ultramarine Blue. Adding the Bice to the mixture lightens while it also changes the purple from warmer to now cooler and bluer. Adding even more Bice makes it less distinct and more towards a violet gray.

Adobe at left, with Ultramarine Blue at bottom right and our Ruby Violet at upper right in the image.

Mixing again our Ruby Violet and Ultramarine Blue into a deep purple, but adding Adobe this time to change value and tone. Because the Adobe is a soft, sandy orange it readily complements the mixture towards a neutral, creating a warm violet gray.

Mixture of our Adobe and Sap Green at bottom left. Sap Green tinted with Titanium White at upper right and Adobe shown mixed with the tint at bottom right.

In this example, a measured amount of Adobe is added to a deep mixed green, our Sap Green, to both lighten and gently warm it. Adding the very strong and opaque Titanium White to tint the Sap Green reveals a cooler undertone to the Sap Green. Adobe can be helpful for bringing warmth back to this tinted mixture and keeping it colorful.

Imaged here is our Cinnabar Green Light , at top center, mixed with Adobe at bottom left and also mixed with Bice on the right.

Our Cinnabar Green Light is another richly hued mixed green but one that is closer in value, than the Sap Green was, to both the Adobe and Bice. Adding these colorful grays to the Cinnabar Green Light shifts its brightness slightly without dulling it as each pushes the tone warmer (Adobe) or cooler (Bice). The medium light values are consistent throughout the mixtures.

Our Cadmium Green Light toned with the Adobe at top and the Bice at bottom.

Super bright, our Cadmium Green Light shows a dramatic shift in brightness once the Adobe and Bice combine with it to make it more neutral and less distinct. The warm and cool versions of the now modified Cadmium Green Light could easily imply a sense of distance and really sit back on a further plane of space in the painting.

Our Ruby Red, unmixed at top center. Adobe at left and mixed with the Ruby Red bottom left. Bice, center right, is mixed also with the Ruby Red in two variations at bottom right.

Mixing into our cool Ruby Red, the Adobe and Bice display their strong pigmentation even though they are grays.

Adobe makes a clear shift in value to lighten as it softens and quiets this extra bright modern Quinacridone pigment that is our Ruby Red. Tinting our saturated Ruby Red with just white, or even a pale off-white, would reveal its almost fluorescent cold undertone, but the Adobe warmed it to a more natural hue and tone.

Adding the Bice, first less, and then more, into a mixture with the same Ruby Red shows subtle shifts in value in the opposite direction as the Bice deepens the Ruby into varying shades of violet. Bice helps to express the rich saturation of the Ruby Red in a different dimension, infusing the mixture with a velvety cool blue to create a sense of space and texture still rich in color.

Our Cadmium Yellow Lemon, top, with Adobe mixed in at bottom. Adobe at right.

Here’s another shift of color and light using the Adobe mixed into our cool mixing Cadmium Yellow Lemon. The warmer and deeper Adobe adjusts our very bright Cadmium, but because the Adobe is only semi-opaque, that very luminous Cadmium Yellow Lemon still beams right through it! Plus the colorful pigmentation of Adobe is contributing to the richness of this new mixture.

Our Cadmium Yellow Lemon, top, with Bluff mixed in at bottom. Bluff at left.

It takes a more neutral and more opaque gray, our Bluff, to really quiet the intense glow of our Cadmium Yellow Lemon.  With only a slight deepening of value, Bluff has the ability to pass over the very bright yellow with a velvety cloak of changing light and atmosphere.

I look forward to showing you more, in an upcoming post, of just how magical our Bluff is at creating its own unique shifts of color and light. Or stop by our showroom, anytime, for an in-person demonstration of our colorful grays.

Visit our website here to learn more about our grays or go directly to Adobe or Bice, or call us at 1-800-932-9375.