Here is my latest piece of a juvenile sunflower made especially for the header.
I have a whole series of photos I took of every stage of this flower’s growth cycle. She happened to grow accidentally from a seed dropped by last year’s crop. I did many paintings of those, and I will eventually post them too.
Here, what would become her seeds had not sprouted the flowers within the flower yet, so the structure was still green. Quite a lovely stage though, huh? One of the differences between using live models as opposed to imaginary ones is that reality is frumpy and random in a way that perfect designs of the mind never are. Always surprising, real life.
And speaking of real life, when I showed this around, half a dozen people told me that the sunflower was the state flower of Ukraine.
I had no such thoughts at the time of creation. A dear Russian friend did one time tell me that they grow a lot of sunflowers in the southern part of Ukraine. He related a trip driving west in the morning though miles and miles of sunflowers growing all the way to the horizon, and they were all facing the west bound traffic. Then, on the return trip east in the evening, they faced them again!
Sunflowers do turn their faces to the light as the sun passes across the sky. Watching this many times as I grew or tended them, I was curious to see if they turned back east in the night. Some do this more than others in my crops. Usually they center up and turn generally southward. But then they perk up and face east in the morning again and are ready when the sun comes up.
But like I said, in my crops, some do this more actively than others. They have distinct personalities, each one. I do love sunflowers. I’ve been painting them my whole life. The Ukraine connection is purely coincidental.
7.25″x5″, acrylic on mounted paper, 9 August 2022