Art Question: What Motivates You to Keep Painting?

A friend of mine recently said she currently doesn't feel the motivation to paint and asked why I do keep painting, what motivates me?

The following excerpt from Becoming Human Through Art: Aesthetic experience in the school by Edmund Burke Feldman explains some of what motivates me:

We should try to think of art, in the present context, as an instrument or tool for dealing with human situations that call for expression. In the course of growing up there are thousands of events and experiences, whose meaning we want to share. It is not a matter of exceptional generosity or lack of self-control that makes children want to divulge their experiences; being human, they have to share, they cannot help sharing, the meanings of their lives. It is the human need to communicate with other people that is the foundation of art...

Sharing and exchanging the contents of their lives is what helps children grow into mature social beings who can function normally in communities, make friends, work productively, and develop confidence in their powers of human understanding and expression...

From a human standpoint, it is not correct to say that the individual sets out to create music, art or literature; rather, he is moved or impelled to say something and art is the result...

At present, artists combine media of expression; they are reluctant to recognize boundaries between paintings and sculpture, between two- and three-dimensional expression, between music and theater and opera and cinema and architecture and sculpture and industrial design. Whether he knows it or not, today's artist seems to be seeking the tribal artist's freedom of access to all media and types of expression. Obviously, the need to make a statement, to share experience, to evoke a response, takes precedence over the 'rules' about categories of artistic expression.

I find that most things written about why children make art applies as well to adults, or at least me.

Art Question: How Do You Make Time to Make Art?

Time, time, time. How in the world can people work a day job, maintain family and friendships and get artwork done? How is it that some people are more productive than others? I must admit that I get jealous when it looks like someone is far more productive than I am. The jealousy comes from the assumption that they have more time, resource or ability than I do. But I have found that being creative and productive have little to do with time, resource or, especially, ability.

Alright, I lied.

Creativity and productivity have everything to do with resource. But not the resource you would think. Funny note: The Beatles Can't Buy Me Love is playing while I write this. Like love, money can't buy you creativity or productivity. So what is involved in being creative or productive? How do you make time to make art?

Find Satisfaction in Creating
I must first mention the most important aspect needed to be productive and creative: you must find internal satisfaction in the act of creating.

Many people do not find satisfaction in being creative. They try to make art because it was their field of study in school, because they are great art appreciators, someone they admire was an artist or someone told them they have talent. Many people do have talent but can't make a commitment to making art or being creative. If you are not deriving deep satisfaction from making art rethink why you make art. It just might change your life and make you happier. There have been times in my life when I have doubted my desire to be an artist. I have stopped making art for periods of time. But, after a time, I can't help but make something. I can't stop myself from drawing, painting, videoing, etc. It just makes me happy to make something and share it with others. My curse is that I don't like to make practical things, I want to make things that talk about ideas or feelings, not how to decorate your house or how to eat off of attractive plates.

Use Your Creative Energy NOW
Second, if you are creative, if you want to make art, be open to using your creative energy right where you are at - in the present moment. Do not pigeon-hole yourself into being an artist that only paints from 7pm - 10pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. Do not be an artist that is creative after everything else is done. If you approach it that way, your time will continually be eaten up by the things we must do. A young co-worker of mine shared a life motto with me the other day:

You can always sleep when you are dead.

In other words, do what you want now.

In response I have acquired a new life motto myself:
You can always clean your house when you are dead.

Not quite as useful, but it makes me feel good saying it. The deeper meaning of both mottoes is to keep your creative energy at the front of your brain and on the tip of your tongue. Get over the idea of scarcity (where my jealousy comes from) and share yourself and your creativity whenever you can. You will find, if you are always sharing and being in the moment with your creativity, you will get more art done. It takes awhile to get to this point in life. You have to be willing to stumble. But once you are there, you can take time to do the other things in life because you know that your creativity, your ability to make art, is just a moment away. In essence, shift from a project mentality to a creative lifestyle. Give it a shot.

How do you make time to make art? You don't. You make art to mark your time.

Art Question: How Do You Find The Time To Paint?

A question I was recently asked by Cece W. is "How do you find the time to paint?"
Finding time to paint can be very difficult and is probably the #1 reason for people not continuing with art. There are several factors that get in the way of finding time to make art, write or be creative in your own personal way. Schedule and time are always something artists struggle with. Most of us are not making a living from our art and have to split our time with a day job. That day job usually has to be a priority as far as schedule goes. For this blog entry, I am going to focus on the Day Job and how to strategize ways of making your Day Job support your creative activities. (For the sake of this entry, your Day Job may not be a paid position, it may be daily commitments you have that get in the way of your making art)

The Day Job Dilemma
If you have read this blog you know that I work for the City of Saint Paul for my day job. I am very happy with my job; if I have to work for someone else I'm happy it is to make the city I live in more beautiful. But, the truth is, I would rather be making my own work and selling and finding supporters for what I want to do.

My first step is to make my job work for me and support my life activities.

How much do you need to work?
My first question is how much money do I need and can I work less than 40 hours a week and still cover my living costs? I currently work 32 hours a week at my day job. I would be more comfortable financially at 35 hours and would feel downright wealthy at 40 hours. But working 40 hours a week would be too exhausting for me and I would feel emotionally and creatively impoverished. 32 hours seems to be an amount of time that works for me. The one thing I have learned is that you need to ask for what you want. If it makes sense, especially if it is somehow beneficial to your company, many bosses will give it a try. One boss appreciated my skills to get things done so much that she let me rewrite my job description annually.

Perform Similar Activities At Home and At Work
Once in awhile I notice that I am working 24 hours a day, at work and at home, doing similar activities. If I am having to reorganize my studio, I also end up reorganizing my office. If I have to do a lot of work on webpages at work, I end up reworking my personal webpage. Over the years I have noticed that if my mind is working in one mode for half the day it often continues working in that mode the rest of the day. I find that this can make things easier. Instead of having to shift gears between my Day Job and my creative life I can just shift physically, not emotionally or intellectually. Also, performing a similar activity at work stimulates my mind about the similar activity in the studio and will often give me new insight into my artwork.

Do Opposite Activities At Home and At Work
Of course, sometimes you just need to get away from work and anything similar to it. If I need to rest or to blow off some steam, I do it. But otherwise, the act of drawing, painting and creating is so polar opposite to some of my work activities (especially those that involve difficult people) that I make it a place of refuge. I have even figured out which studio activities effect me in which way. I like writing after a hard day at work because it lets my mind escape to another world more efficiently than painting. Painting is relaxing in the sense that I am focused on a real world physical activity with quick results. When I am done writing I feel I have gotten away (escaped) and when I am done painting I feel I have accomplished something (unless, of course, my painting sucks).

Tell People At Your Day Job About Your Art Activities
Telling people at work about what you do in your studio has several benefits.
First: when people understand that you have artistic interests, passions and commitments beyond work they will talk to you, give assignments to you and generally treat you as a creative person. This will create less of a contrast between your two worlds of work and studio and make the transition a little easier.
Second: learning to talk about your art and your activities in a manner that an average non-arts person can understand. Learning how to talk about your art will expand your audience.
And Third: networking. Don't be afraid to use work contacts to meet other artists, dealers or potential buyers/sponsors. We work to make money (resource) so we can do live the life we really want. If your Day Job is going to support what you really want to do, why limit it to only monetary gain? Of course, how you go about using work contacts can be tricky and must be done in an above-board manner. Don't always push it - people will get annoyed with you.

Do NOT Combine Your Day Job With Your Studio Activities
This cuts both ways. You should not be doing your own personal art activities at work and you should not be doing Day Job activities in your studio. The first aspect is obvious. You are not paid to perform your own personal activities at work. Some work environments are casual about this. I had an artist friend who worked at a parking garage so he could sit and journal in between customers. So, in some cases there are some allowances. But, if you work in an environment where it is not welcome, or if you have fellow workers around, I would not recommend it. Co-workers get resentful that you're not working as much as they are, or feel you are taking advantage of the resources and equipment at work. Personally, I might feel so much guilt that when I am in my studio it would eat at me.

Likewise, keep your Day Job out of your studio. It is hard enough to focus on the tasks at hand without bringing your Day Job into the studio. Keep your studio a sacred creative place, or else you might find your precious time getting chipped away.

Art Question: How Are You In So Many Art Shows?

Lisa E. asked me "How do you get into so many art shows?"

There are a few ways to go about getting art shows.

1. Join an organized art group that shows regularly. I am a member of the Minnesota Watercolor Society. This group has two exhibits of member's work each year. One is a juried show, the other is an inclusive show. I assume that I am a good enough artist to get into most juried watercolor shows, so I can count on an average of two shows a year through this group.

2. Join or create a group of artists around a theme and propose shows. This is where my Project Art for Nature membership comes in. Project Art for Nature is a group of twenty artists and illustrators working around the theme of protecting the natural environment. The twenty artists are split into small groups, called pods. The larger group has an annual exhibit at either the Bell Museum or another location. The pods also pursue exhibits in smaller venues. Through my connections, I was able to set up a show for eleven PAN artists at University of Minnesota - Morris this month. Another pod member, Teri Power, lined up a small show in Hammond, WI for January. So, right there, I have three exhibits in the next year through this group. I organized one, other people organized the other two.

3. There are galleries for which you can pay a small fee in order to show. An example of this is my solo exhibit at Homewood Studios in October of 2010. For a very reasonable fee, I will have my work on display for two weeks. It is important in these instances to find a gallery that you are comfortable with and you respect the quality of the work being shown. Also, is the gallery a place where work sells so you can at least make up your fee? I am very comfortable with George, the owner of Homewood Studios, and the art exhibits I have seen there. I have also seen that several pieces in each show sell. There are a few galleries like this in the Twin Cities. Some cost more than others and you have to make sure you are getting what you pay for.

4. How do you get into shows at your traditional gallery with white walls and higher prices for your work? Ssshhhh, that is a secret... Honestly, my best opportunities have come from other people. These gallery owners are seeing new work all the time, either through their own research or people coming in to inquire about a show. Unless your work hits their eye in the perfect manner, they most likely will not take you on without knowing you. That is where a reference is important. I was invited to show at The Grand Hand Gallery because a respected person who was well acquainted with my work had recommended me.

But the two most important aspects for having regular art shows are to:
- Get out there so people can know and see you and your work. You cannot have an art career alone. It takes many people to make your career possible.
- Make work consistently. If you are showing a lot, you need to be creating a lot. You cannot keep showing the same ten pieces over and over again.

Art Question: Is it too late?

Recently, in response to a comment I made on Facebook that I think it is too late for humans; we have so polluted the world that it is hostile to life and that humans are beyond the point of no return, I was asked the following question by R. S.:

"Mark, if it's too late, what are any of us doing rearranging deck chairs on the titanic?"

Is this an art question? Absolutely. This is at the heart of what I do with my art, not in a technical craft-making manner but in a philosophical aesthetic manner. We have not learned our lessons as a species. We have been warned for millennia (literally) that our ego, our greed and our fears will get in the way of our existence, they will be our end. And yet here we are, not on the doorstep, but having walked through the doorway into the kitchen and are bent over looking in the refrigerator for a beer and a leftover boneless BBQ chicken wing cheeseburger. I do not want to partake in this destruction, but by the very nature of my existence in this society, it is inevitable. Can people work hard to create change? YES. Can people pull together to make this a cleaner greener world? YES. Can we save ourselves from the destructive powers we have unleashed on this planet? NO. It is too late for that. And the most amazing part of all this is that after being in existence in our current form for over ten thousand years, we were able to end everything with our actions of only the last one hundred and fifty years. A blink of an eye, really.

So, am I rearranging deck chairs on the titanic? No. Were people in WWII concentration camps wasting their time creating choirs and drawing and painting in their shelters? No. Because our world is ending, should we stop being ourselves, stop doing what we love, stop working with people to make it a better world? No. Were the musicians on the Titanic wrong to be playing as the boat went down? No. They were musicians and gave of their talents to make that horror-filled world a little better? I am a artist and a writer - what else would I do? I will continue to paint and express myself until the end whenever I die, whenever this world dies. I am a community organizer and I will also continue to organize people and communities to make this a better world. Why? Because I want to live in a better world than the one I live in today. Does that mean I will help save everyone from death brought on by our environmental collapse? No, it is beyond that.

Our financial system collapsed last year. Many people, experts and economists, had been predicting it for up to six or eight months before it happened. Yet, most people were taken by surprise. Now, the scientists and experts are telling us that our environmental system is on the verge of collapsing. Are you going to be taken by surprise?

Art Question: How do you make paintings that look dimensional?

What a great question from Carol V. How do you make paintings that look so dimensional? The key is contrast and edges.

Why contrast? Contrast is the tool used to create separation of shapes in a painting. Two shapes next to each other that are in great contrast will separate from each other and create a sense of space. Two shapes next to each other that do not have much contrast will not separate from each other and the sense of space between them will be minimized.

What does that mean?

Let's look at this cabbage painting as an example.
The cabbage seems to have volume and shape. Each leaf appears in front or behind another leaf. This is done by overlapping shapes, but it becomes convincing when you use contrast properly.

In the detail of three layers of the leaves, you can see that the leaves in the background are all darker than the leaf in front of them. The leaf in the center of the detail has a white edge at the top that is in contrast to the darker bodies of the background leaves. The central leaf then darkens as it approaches the two leaves in the front, at the bottom. This creates contrast with the lighter edges of the leaves in front. In this manner space is created, by using contrast between shapes.

Of course, contrast can only happen at an edge shared by two shapes. The stronger the contrast, the stronger the edge. There are edges within each leaf created by the veins. But the contrast and edges between the veins and the leaf are softer than the hard edges between two leaves.

This is the main way in which I create a sense of depth or dimension: by carefully creating or diminishing contrast at edges. There are other techniques you can use to enhance a sense of space, but that is for another time. If you check out the images in my gallery, or other paintings, you will begin to notice this wherever there is a strong sense of space.

Art Question: What Do I Do When A Painting Is Off to a Bad Start

I have not painted a flower-painting-of-the-month for August and here it is September already. So I thought I would paint a vase of flowers from the Farmer's Market. At the market I didn't see any flowers that grabbed me, but I figured I could do something with what was there. I brought a bunch of flowers home, divided them into groups for three different vases. One I gave to a friend as a house warming gift, the other two I sketched from. I had been at Mallard Island a few weeks back and busy as a bee upon my return, so I had not been in the studio for the last two to three weeks. So, here I sit with a bad start to a painting. I could tell that I haven't been in the studio for awhile; the flow wasn't there, I wasn't sure about my decisions, I seemed to be using the wrong size brushes and I didn't have an overall idea of what I was going to do.

Here is the image of the painting I have begun. Even the composition and concept are weak to me. My attempts at painting were clumsy and ineffective. My color mixing was like flatulence. Very little in this piece is working. By the time I was wrapping up for the evening I felt I was finally starting to have a feel for where this might go. I might be able to save it next time I paint, which I hope will be tomorrow night.


What to do when a painting starts out badly
There are two approaches to take when a painting starts out badly:
1. Walk away from it and come back later with fresh eyes. I actually went over to a friend's house for dinner after my bad start on this piece. Upon my return I had no clue as to how to make it better, but my mind was in a calmer place to make better decisions and to focus. Having not been in my studio for awhile my focus was not there when I started.  It is much easier and better to start out focused then to try to recover later.

2. Work your way through it until something happens that you like.
Once I returned with a better mindset, I was able to doodle with the work until I started to find something that was working for me. I started putting in the dark areas and fixing up some edges. I now feel that I will be able to apply some lines and paint over some wet areas in order to improve it and figure the next steps from there. Most paintings go through a stage of uncertainty that just needs to be worked through - sometimes you have to work really hard.  When the uncertainty is at the start of a painting you have to work even harder.

If I never feel good about a painting, I will wipe it off with a rag and start from the beginning. Most likely, a completely different subject.

The important thing is to come to a place where you are in the moment paying attention to the paint, the color, the object. If you can get to that place while painting you have won 90% of the battle. So much was going through my head while painting that I couldn't paint well. Having some dinner and enjoying some time with a friend and his daughter put me in a better place to pay attention - to paint. Part of the reason I believe I can save this painting is that I have begun to knock the rust from my painting muscles after some time off. I will probably be in a better place from the beginning next time.

Update: The painting was a complete loss. It went nowhere even with some work and I ended up painting something else on the canvas - oh,well.  This canvas helped me get back my focus - a small sacrifice.

Art Question: Do I Have To Make Art Tonight, Mom?

I would like to make some art tonight,... or is it that I feel I need to make art tonight. I have a deadline tonight for submitting work to a fundraiser, I need to complete a flower-painting-of-the-month in the next five days, I have a backhall that is under construction, a kitchen full of tomatoes that need to be canned, statements for an upcoming show that need to be layed-out and printed, a couple of videos to download, five new pages to create on my new website (I hope to unveil in a month), a new book cover to design and a few new projects that I want to be working on.

I just spent an hour and a half downloading pictures from Mallard Island and uploading some of them to a Facebook page. Some of the pictures are here in this entry.

I stopped by The Grand Hand Gallery today to check in on the current exhibit with my work. I worked 8.5 hours today at my day job and am now creating this blog entry.

The choices are so many and the energy is so low. A beer and a good friend seem to be the most appropriate and wished for activity.

Although I am very tired, over-burdened and wondering how to squeeze in any kind of creative activity, what keeps going through my mind is Claire and the idea that this planet, earth, is almost dead. Not dead to it's self, but dead to people. The environment we have created has become toxic to us and many other living things. Claire believes it is already beyond the point of no return. She doesn't believe the planet will die. She believes that we will die. We are killing ourselves through our greed and fears. Isn't it kinda absurd that some of our earliest writings recognize this weakness in ourselves and yet we haven't learned anything in 10,000 years? We have prophecized our own doom, we have laid out how we would bring it about, and yet, 4,000 generations later, we are no longer on the doorstep but have confidently and arrogantly walked through the doorway and into the end. It saddens me greatly. We are the sons of Cain.

Anyone for some ping-pong?

Art Question: What Are the Benefits of a Weeklong Art Retreat?

I just returned from a weeklong trip to Mallard Island on Rainy Lake in Minnesota. Rainy Lake is on the Minnesota/Canada border near International Falls.

I was a co-caretaker of the island for the week while a group that calls themselves the St. Croix Writers Group held a workshop. The writer's group was very generous in allowing Beth, the other caretaker, and myself to participate in their evening gatherings and made us one of the group.

Why go on a weeklong art retreat? How does one benefit from this?

The people at Mallard Island this last week were a varied lot. Some were novice writers, some published, one soon to be published (very exciting), a magazine article writer, a photographer, a quilter and a few more things I am sure I am not aware of. Three or four of the participants buried themselves in their writing and we were lucky to see them at breakfast or lunch. Others took the opportunity to get away from their writing to play, interact with like minded people and enjoy the beauty of the islands.

No matter what activity the participants pursued or how engaged they were with their art, they all ended the week with such happiness and satisfaction. They all want to come back again next year. I, myself, although I had plenty of time, only drew for two hours, painted for about five hours and wrote for about six. An outsider might have considered my week a waste of time. They might have witnessed other participants spending too much time cooking, or fishing, or reading one of the many thousands of books on the island. Generally, we think of retreats as an opportunity to delve into our own creativity - an opportunity to be productive.

Some people come ready to produce. They have a project that needs their attention and they are ready to rock. They would rather do nothing else, despite the beautiful sunshine and cold blue water calling them. Others want to create, but something is in their way. I have noticed at Mallard, and at other workshops that I have led or participated in, how many people first turn to grief at a retreat. At workshops like this, I often ask people "what is beautiful in your life?" This leads to all kinds of conversations, but very often the grief we have not been able to process arises very quickly. Our lives are too hectic, too full of distractions to fully heal ourselves from our hurts and losses. When we take the time to have nothing on the schedule for a whole week, it is grief that most wants to be dealt with so we can get on to our happy and creative selves. If we are isolated and alone, the rising grief can become depression. When we are surrounded by beauty and people who care, we talk and we get a little goofy and we draw close to others. Like a metamorphosing dragonfly that squeezes the juices out of its body before it is ready for its first flight, I think we need to squeeze a drop or two of unfettered celebration and happiness with others before our grief is over. It is beautiful to see a person open up their spirit, to see sunshine after a long period of rain and clouds, to see a genuine deeply felt smile that hasn't been there for many months, maybe years.

There are many benefits to a weeklong art retreat. There is the opportunity of extended periods of time to immerse ourselves in our creativity and there is the opportunity to remove those barriers that are getting in the way of our creativity. And there is the wonderful opportunity of making new friends and spending time in a beautiful setting.

Many thanks to Beth Waterhouse and the Ernst C. Oberholtzer Foundation for allowing me to partake and add to the life at Mallard Island.

What's beautiful in your life? http://www.markgranlund.com/

Art Question: I'm Dissatisfied. What's Next?

This is the painting I have been working on while not painting chickens. I am trying to work two different techniques together into one canvas and I AM NOT HAPPY with what is happening.

What is Happening?I originally darkened the background behind the tree (Oliver) so that the light leaves would have some contrast and some "pop!" But as I started painting the leaves in front of the darker background, I was becoming dissatisfied with what was happening. I feel like the leaves somehow aren't detailed enough and the new trunks are just horrendous; they have no touch, no sense of "trunkness", no sense of real space about them. They are sitting on the surface of the canvas and laying a big old turd. I stopped painting them in the middle of painting the one on the right.

Perhaps even more important, I don't feel like painting more realistically right now, and I don't think the painting wants me to. The chicken was good. That painting called for some realism. The object itself also had some nice abstract elements. This landscape - bahhhh!

So What Do I Do About It?After a pound of chocolate and a half bottle of chianti...
I move to a different part of the painting. After Oliver had completely frustrated me, I then began painting on the left hand side of the painting. This area is more abstract and I had figured out previously I wanted to darken the background color I was using. So I started painting this area with a purple. I started to like what I was seeing. The darker purple is flattening the space and making the drawing aspects stand out more, which is what I want in this area. I also like the purple color next to the orangey-brown of the lines. But then I ran out of the white paint I need to make my purple - CURSES! Why is this world against me!
So, next time I am in the studio, after I bike to the art store to get some white, I will continue working on the purple background. Once the rest of the painting is working, it will tell me the next step with Oliver.

Art Question: How Do I Care for Brushes When Painting Outdoors?

Daine W. recently asked me how to care for brushes when painting oil paints outdoors? Do you have to bring along a portable brush washer, or is there another way to deal with this?

There are a few things to do to care for brushes when painting outdoors.

First, always make sure that your brushes are not standing on their heads whenever you are in transit or when you are painting. That means NOT LEAVING YOUR BRUSHES IN YOUR JAR OF TURPS! Other than letting paint dry on your brush, this is the quickest way of ruining your brushes. If you don't have room on your easel for laying down your brushes, then you can lay them on the ground or even stick them handle first in the ground.

Second, if it is sunny outside your paint will dry faster, even on your brushes. If you have a brush with paint on it and have decided to use a different brush for awhile, rinse the paint-filled brush in your turps before you set it aside. Paint can get a quick "skin" on it in the sun. This can cause problems when you go to use it again.

Thirdly, I never fully clean my brushes while in the field. There is enough to carry to worry about bringing enough turps and other items to clean in the field. When I am done painting, I will make sure I have rinsed my brushes as best I can with the turps I have on hand. I will wipe them with a rag. If I am just a short way from home (a half-hour or so), I will put the rinsed and wiped brushes in my paint box and take them home to clean them.

If it will take longer to get home, I will clean and rinse like above and then dip the brushes one more time in the turps so they are fully wet. I will then stick them in a plastic baggie with a zip top. I will close the zip top and try to get as much air as possible out of the baggie. If my brushes are wet with turps and there is no air, any paint on them can't dry out.

Art Question: Dealing with Transitions

This is a painting I am in the midst of discovering. As I transition into a new technique with my work, once in awhile, I come to a crossroads where I am not sure what is next.

I originally painted this entire canvas with the appropriate background colors for the different elements; grey-blue-green trees on the other side of the river, blue sky, blue water with some shadowy areas, green grass and purpley and pink sand areas. But, in keeping with my new direction, I wanted the trees to be lines drawn on the canvas. Once they were in, this seemed a bit boring and ineffective. I decided to have one tree painted realistically for contrast. This also seems to symbolize my own transition away from my formal painting background to a more symbolic and abstract technique.

I began to fill in the background with a solid color so the trees will feel more like a drawing. In the process, I changed a few things that bothered me: the base of the clump of trees, edges and the handling of bark. Now this is starting to feel better. The added simplification of the drawn tree area adds more pressure to convincingly portray the realistic tree. The contrast in painting styles means both styles will have to be strong enough to create a balance. I have a fear the realistic tree could look too painterly or too weak in terms of contrast.

I will deal with the realistic tree this weekend. In the meantime, I am not happy with the color of the background I painted today. It needs to be cooler and slightly darker. I was painting into yellow paint that was still a bit wet - this added warmth to the background color in some areas. Oh well, I will repaint it again later, but at least I know what I want now. As it is with any crossroad: make an educated guess, walk down that road and be ready to adjust.