Sunflowers study no. 1

2021

I had been putting some time and effort into modelling sunflowers but without ever being quite satisfied with the result. The showy front of the flower doesn’t present any particular technical challenge; it is the back, where the green, fleshy sepals merge with the stem, that is most difficult.

As a form of light relief I decided to explore a different approach known as photogrammetry. This entails taking around 70 photographs of a real sunflower, from a variety of angles and running them through a piece of sophisticated mathematical software which deduces the three dimensional shape of the flower and outputs it as a standard digital model. This can be positioned, scaled and replicated in the same way as those of the hand-crafted variety.

Photogrammetry works really well with simple textured objects like apples, teapots and old boots. Flowers are a little more challenging and, as you can see, the result is far from perfect. All the same, I felt the sunflower had a character all of its own and it is something that I might pursue again in the future