Ferguson TE20

I finished the painting above today. It shows a farmer on his Ferguson Tractor. I have said before that I always plan my work mentally and/ or on paper. I wanted to use this viewpoint with a driver on the tractor. Ordinarily the exhaust pipe would have obscured the face of the farmer as it goes straight up from the engine. Fortunately some models had the exhaust fed down running out behind the driver. This is the model I opted for.

I drove a tractor similar to this when I was at school. The school had a farm and we spent time there working on it. I was allowed to plough the fields at the age of 13 or 14 although I am not sure what health and safety would say about that now. The ground was pretty flat and unless the plough got caught it was probably reasonably safe. It was a great experience working with animals and that was just my school friends. I love the country but would have found being a farmer too much like hard work.