Grey Sky Over Dublin West
Although I have a habit of painting skies a roaring yellow, pink, or green, and of posting photos with skies of blue, in reality the skies here in Ireland are frequently grey.
Like today.
And like in this photo I took at 4pm a week ago on my way to town. I haven’t enhanced it in the slightest - no darkening or no messing with the contrast has been indulged in.
This was the colour of the sky as I walked out the door without coat or umbrella, calculating I could make it to the bus stop before any rain might fall. And I was right, as the rain didn’t begin falling until I was off the bus and walking down Pearse Street.
Anyway I don’t only paint skies the colours of the rainbow, sometimes I paint Irish skies a darker colour like in this painting of Pearse’s Cottage in Rosmuc (the same Pearse of Pearse Street coincidentally; he made a bit of an impression), and in this painting of a standing stone in Donegal.
I mention this because I was asked by a gallery in Kansas City to change the colour of the sky in the Pearse’s Cottage painting with the explanation that people in the American Midwest aren’t used to grey skies and would find it depressing. Refusing to repaint I replied that this sky was in Ireland and that sometimes the sky just isn’t blue.
So the painting never did go into the gallery.
I like grey skies, but because you may not I’ll post some more photos of Ireland under blue skies in a little while.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Refusing to repaint I replied that this sky was in Ireland and that sometimes the sky just isn’t blue.
Well done and said. Things are as they are. Romantic Ireland’s not dead and gone - it is not with O’Leary in the grave - it just never was.
I love the grey skies as well. It must be such a relief from the unrelenting sun you had suffered.
How’s the dog adjusting?
Medbh, I’m spending a lot of time these days just looking at the skies, and they are mostly grey. I find them vibrant and feel much more alive under them than I do under the blue, blue, blue of constant sunshine.
The dog however is still in America - not being cleared to fly until late December (under the scheme that replaces quarantine). I’ve had reports and photographs but autumn in KC is the nicest weather - at least from the dog’s point of view.
Being separated this long is not good for either of us though so I’m looking forward to December and the dog will love the weather here. Parson Jack Russell was an Englishman who bred his strain of terrier not for temperatures in the 90s and 100s. Or 80s, 20s, and temperatures below zero for that matter.
I’m afraid these days to go over to your site because of how Jack has been - is he comfortable?