Sunday, July 6, 2008

Tapestry - 'The Pioneer' by Frederick McCubbin


This is a tapestry of the famous painting called the Pioneer by Frederick McCubbin. It was painted oil on canvas in 1904 and is the first of a series of three paintings.

I started this tapestry of the Pioneer in 1990 while living in Currawa Drive, Boronia and finished it 11 years later in December 2001, just before I moved from Sunbury to Bayswater. It moved house with me about 9 times before it was finally finished. the day I finished it I decided that it might have taken 11 years to complete but it wasn't going to take that long to have it framed so just after I moved into my unit I had it framed.

When I started this tapestry I had great plans of completing all three tapestries in the set. With it taking 11 years to complete just one the others have little or no chance of ever being started!

I could say the reason it took so long to complete the tapestry is that it is so big, measuring 19 inches by 14 inches, but the reality is that I found it such a daunting project having to match all the colors that it spent a lot of the 11 years in a basket waiting to be picked up.

So while it took 11 years to complete it only took 2 months to have it framed. It's now hanging on my wall where I can enjoy the scene and remember all the work that went into it.

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