My search for sunflowers.
Before I came to Canada, I visited my sister in Tuscany, Italy. It was late July and there were so many sunflower fields around the village of Rapolano Terme where my sister lives. During my four-month stay, I painted several paintings of sunflower fields. Sometimes I feel paintings of sunflower fields can be so cheesy, however, when I actually stood in front of them, I couldn't resist it. They were simply beautiful. It has been almost a decade since then, but I wanted to look for a sunflower field near Toronto.
I searched "Ontario sunflower growers", but the results lead me nowhere. I did find several images of sunflower fields in Ontario on Flickr, and some kind photographers even linked a map of the location. The photos were shot by several people in 2006 and 2007 and the location was Innisfil, Ontario and Mississauga, Ontario. So I drove there the next morning. The weather forecast was expecting rain in the afternoon so I wanted to get there as early as I could. When I entered Innisfil, it started raining. I hurried to the exact location, and there it was... a corn field, probably due to crop rotation every few years. I drove around the area without any success and moved to Mississauga only to find... another corn field.
That was last week. I didn't give up and went back to Flickr. This time I found some images from this year. So out again I went.
Wow. I found it. The only thing is that all of the sunflowers were facing the sun, away from me and there was no access to the other side so I couldn't go around.
I got several decent photographs from which to paint but standing on the road I was thinking "Oh please turn around and just look at me!"
