Farm Boy Racer

Farm Boy Racer
Watercolour on Paper
38cm x 28cm (15" x 11")

A local farm owner or tractor enthusiast owns a couple of lovely old tractors. I’ve never seen them out in the fields, but Elaine and I have run into them speeding along the local tracks.

I painted this at the first meeting of the Shelford Group of Artists since the Easter exhibition. The theme for the day was “Drawing with the Brush and Big Brush Techniques”. Tony Slater was keen we painted with our biggest brushes and without any preliminary pencil drawing.

I started by trying to draw the tractor in as few strokes as possible and then decided to make a gesture drawing to convey the tractor's lumbering speed and the sunlight reflecting on its grill.

It not easy to make a painting look quick and spontaneous – this was my fifth attempt. It took a couple of tries to get the basic drawing right and then a few more to sort out the details (or lack of them).