Backyard Bunny Watercolor In Midwest Nature Show

Curators for the exhibition Midwest Nature: Its Beauty And Its Peril have chosen my Backyard Bunny In Grass, Autumn, painting to appear in the show, which will be held at the historic Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook, IL, from June 9 through July 26, 2025.

I'm excited to participate and looking forward to being part of this exhibit, organized by the Chicago Women's Caucus For Art.

Join Me Wednesday, June 18, At The Artists' Reception

Please join me at the artists' reception for Midwest Nature, which will be held Wednesday, June 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. Mayslake Peabody Estate, a onetime mansion and now a cultural community center within a forest preserve, is located at 1717 31st St. in Oak Brook. 

I will attend the opening. Do join me: I'm looking forward to sharing my Bunny painting with you and being together at the show in such a grand and historic setting.

Organizers will provide an array of non-alcoholic beverages at the reception. Admission is free.

About Backyard Bunny In Grass, Autumn

Watching rabbits hopping through our backyard as summer gave way to autumn inspired me to create this painting.

It's on an unusual type of paper called yellow mango paper. It's made by including mango leaves and plant bits in the pulp to create a colorful, highly textured paper.

It was fun to capture this bunny at a moment in time, when a twitch of white tail and a flash of one bright eye caught my attention. Here the bunny sits on the grass, in a sea of fallen autumn leaves, with just a couple more leaves on a branch above. 

I mounted the painting on a handmade cotton paper, using traditional techniques. I worked with a special framing service to preserve that look: the mat surrounding the painting was cut to show not only the yellow paper but a bit of the mounting paper as well so you can see the contrast between the papers and the craft that goes in to mounting a watercolor.

The beautiful premium frame, chosen specifically to highlight the painting and its bright autumn orange, red, and yellow colors, completes the look and feeling of fall.

Here's what I wrote about the painting and how it fits with this exhibition's theme: "The Midwestern landscape inspires, with its essential flatness that highlights the horizon and an earthly sense of the eternal. In this unique natural setting, the land’s water bodies, plants, and animals testify to strength, even in the face of human-created challenges, and continue to delight the senses and the soul."

See Another Bunny!

You can see another bunny watercolor in the Sterling Suggests collection. Check out the Innocence painting here: https://annenordhausbike.com/pages/sterling-suggests

About Midwest Nature

Chicago artist Anne Farley Gaines created the concept for Midwest Nature to present artworks that express the beauty of nature in the Midwest—literally, abstractly and metaphorically—and to answer the question: How are we connected to the nature around us? 

She then worked with co-curators Bert Leveille and Jeane Kat McGrail to select artworks by 48 artists.

Selected works range from manicured gardens to prairie grasses and native flowers, to the water and the sky above, some conveying concerns about how some natural areas are negatively affected by extreme environmental issues such as drought and flooding caused by climate change.

Exhibit Location And Hours

Mayslake Peabody Estate is located at 1717 31st St. in Oak Brook, IL.

The gallery hosting the show is open Monday through Friday, noon to 3 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is closed Sundays and select holidays.

The DuPage Forest Preserve, which operates the venue, offers tours at 12:30 p.m. weekdays and 11:30 a.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 630-206-9566.