Anne Nordhaus-Bike Art

A blue and purple mystery: is it getting ready to rain, or is the Sun getting ready to peek through now that the rain is ending? This dynamic painting lets YOU decide, each time you gaze at it. Isn't that delightful?

Original: Original watercolor painting

Signature: Signed at lower right by the artist

Size: 27 1/4 x 15 inches (framed)

Professionally framed and ready to hang: Enjoy it now in your home or office!

Exquisitely "float framed": unique framing creates shallow shadow box, "floats" painting to showcase entire work of art - including heavyweight paper's dramatic textured edges

Certified: All original paintings come with a certificate of authenticity

Shipping: Original artwork ships free in continental U.S.!

A Word From Anne

Do you ever have that "in between" feeling?

The one where you're waiting for something that's just about to finish up? Or perhaps it's the other way around, and you're waiting, and waiting, for something to get started?

If you can relate to those feelings, then you'll understand this Getting Ready watercolor painting perfectly.

It's a unique blue and purple watercolor that you can experience in multiple ways, depending on what you want or need at that very moment. The painting itself "floats" inside a special custom frame, just like we "float" in the in between times of life, when we're waiting.

Is it a landscape or a seascape? You get to choose - and change your mind, any time you wish. The mostly blue upper half shows a semi-abstract or impressionist sky, while the mostly purple lower part can represent either a land or a lake or sea. 

The cool blues and purples soothe, even as the brushstrokes suggest a storm may be brewing (or be ready to pass). The purple land or sea shows a varied terrain or else choppy waters, and the blue in the top half gives the impression of rain, with the skies beginning to clear. 

So it's an ever changing work of art that empowers you because you choose what you want to see and experience in the swirling strokes and rich colors. If you need a message of hope, here it is in a sky that's clearing before sunshine arrives. And if you need to practice acceptance, you can find that here, too, in a view of nature getting ready to storm (but will see you through whatever happens).

Life so often feels out of our control. With Getting Ready, you're always in control: you can "read" it however you wish to fit whatever you're feeling or experiencing - and give yourself whatever you need in that moment.

Enjoy it at home, or bring it into your office. Wherever you need a mysterious, beautiful painting to remember your true power and life's grace.

Created With All Premium, Professional Grade Artist Materials

• 100% cotton watercolor paper: durability with beautiful natural grain
  
• Heavyweight 300 pound paper is cold pressed for exquisite, even surface texture - yet thick enough to remain rigid for float framing and to create dramatic deckled edges when torn by hand
• Acid free paper: painting retains its luster and vibrance and stands the test of time; it remains beautiful for centuries without conservation if stored and handled properly
• Highest quality watercolor paints: vibrant, super-saturated color
• The most finely ground watercolors in the world: colors have high intensity and purity
• Artist grade watercolors allow paint application all the way from delicate, nearly invisible transparency through deep, nearly opaque intensity

Museum-Quality Framing

• Custom framed: highest professional quality and attention to detail
• Float framed: this special framing technique "floats" the painting on top of the mat to show off the heavyweight paper's exquisite texture and the unique edges hand-torn by the artist
• Invisible spacers between mat and glass: spacers transform the frame into a shallow shadow box that lets the painting float, almost magically, above the mat without touching either the mat or the glass. Float framing gives you an exquisite, unique artwork that's both a painting and a low relief sculpture
• Light birchwood frame: subtle color and wood grain complement painting, put focus on color and brushwork
• Museum grade, archival white mat: preserves and highlights colorful painting
• Top quality glass: covers and protects painting 
  
• Professional grade framing hardware: screws securely anchor hardware into frame; framing wire is smooth to protect your hands and your walls
• Fully covered back: protects frame and painting, gives smooth, neat appearance
• Felt rounds on back at lower left and right: cushion painting after hanging and protect your walls

More Details: Provenance

Getting Ready

• Created 2017.
• Exhibited in artist's solo show, Implied Horizons: Watercolors By Anne Nordhaus-Bike, Five Seasons Family Sports Club, Northbrook, IL, Nov. 3 – Dec. 2, 2017.
• Exhibited in solo show, Implied Horizons: Watercolors By Anne Nordhaus-Bike, Five Seasons Family Sports Club, Burr Ridge, IL, Dec. 7, 2018 – Jan. 5, 2019.

Media Coverage

• “Watercolors to be displayed at sports club,” Cook County Chronicle, Dec. 5, 2018
• “Art Show,” Gazette Chicago, Dec. 2018
• “Art Exhibit by Anne Nordhaus-Bike,” Chicago Metromix, Dec. 2018
• “Implied Horizons,” Gazette Chicago, Dec. 2018
• “Anne Nordhaus-Bike, Implied Horizons,” The Visualist, Nov./Dec. 2018
• “Clearing Artist To Exhibit Watercolors,” Clear Ridge Reporter And Newshound, Nov. 21, 2018
• “Clearing Artist To Exhibit Watercolors,” Southwest News-Herald, Nov. 16, 2018
• “Art Show,” Gazette Chicago, July 2017
• “Northbrook’s Anne Nordhaus-Bike set to display art at Five Seasons,” The Northbrook Tower, Oct. 19, 2017
• “Watercolor Art Exhibit Opens at Five Seasons Northbrook on November 3rd,” Daily Herald, Oct. 19, 2017