Oil on canvas with handmade frame. painting size 50cm x 40cm

Following a painting and road trip through France and Italy in late summer sunflowers have recently become a new theme in my paintings. When I got to Umbria in September I found many fields of sunflowers had gone black and dried out in the sun looking like a scene from "The Walking Dead". Fortunately some strains of sunflower were still in bloom.

The sunflowers in this still life were from Waitrose in Hexham, far more reliable than rude nature! It was another way of exploring the subject before completing the paintings I had started in the fields of Umbria, the first few of which I am just finishing.

Shortly after finishing this still life I was at the National Gallery in London and saw some of Van Gogh's still life paintings of sunflowers. Having just tackled the subject I can appreciate how fantastic Van Gogh's paintings are.

This still life and the sunflower fields painted in Umbria will be exhibited at the M1 Gallery in Greenwich, London, in December.