Android - how to define ShapeDrawables programmatically?

What I'm trying to achieve is to use a Drawable with a couple of layers inside it, but control some values at runtime such as the startColor for the gradient. Here's what I have in my_layered_shape.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
  <item>
    <shape android:shape="rectangle">
      <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#FF000000" />
      <solid android:color="#FFFFFFFF" />
    </shape>
  </item>
  <item android:top="1dp" android:bottom="1dp"> 
    <shape android:shape="rectangle">
    <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#FF000000" />
    <gradient
      android:startColor="#FFFFFFFF"
      android:centerColor="#FFFFFF88"
      android:endColor="#FFFFFFFF"
      android:gradientRadius="250"
      android:centerX="1"
      android:centerY="0"
      android:angle="315"
    />            
    </shape>
  </item>
</layer-list>

And if I use mMyImageView.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_layered_shape) it works. I don't mind splitting the xml if I have to, or doing the whole thing programatically as long as there's a way to get at the various color values. The concept I'm going for programmatically (i.e. my best shot at doing the same in code as this xml) is:

Drawable[] layers = new Drawable[2];

ShapeDrawable sd1 = new ShapeDrawable(new RectShape());
sd1.getPaint().setColor(0xFFFFFFFF);
sd1.getPaint().setStyle(Style.STROKE);
sd1.getPaint().setStrokeWidth(1);
// sd1.getPaint().somehow_set_stroke_color?

ShapeDrawable sd2 = new ShapeDrawable(new RectShape());
sd2.getPaint().setColor(0xFF000000);
sd2.getPaint().setStyle(Style.STROKE);
// sd2.getPaint().somehow_set_stroke_color?
// sd2.getPaint().somehow_set_gradient_params?

layers[0] = sd1;
layers[1] = sd2;
LayerDrawable composite = new LayerDrawable(layers);
mMyImageView.setBackgroundD