Gray or grey?

Some definitions of gray or grey indicate that it is a neutral color between black and white. Further that gray is achromatic meaning "possessing no hue" or color. Well I disagree. At least in watercolor, mixed grays have lots of hues. I usually mix a blue, a red and a yellow. I like the idea that colors shouldn't be overmixed so that they still have hints of the individual colors used to create them.


My 1970 reprint of the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary prefers the spelling grey. Under gray, it reads "see grey". Under grey, there are two pages of definitions. Both variants in spelling have validity, according to the OED:

With regard to the question of usage, an inquiry by Dr. Murray in Nov. 1893 elicited a large number of replies, from which it appeared that in Great Britain the form grey is the more frequent in use, notwithstanding the authority of Johnson and later Eng. lexicographers, who have all given the preference to gray.

This gray/grey painting was created on October 11th at about 10 pm facing east. The city glow at the bottom of the painting is from streetlights.