JenAmbrose Design in Progress

Aside from an incident in the Toronto airport where I literally was debating giving up and driving home, the air travel went fine.  We landed in Tel Aviv at 10:30 in the morning and the trip was officially underway. Our tour was through George's International tours, and they took care of absolutely everything on this trip! First stop after getting everyone settled was that coastal city of Netanya.   I was very excited to be seeing the Mediterranean Sea for the first time (even though that clearly wasn't the point of the trip).  Below is a ceiling detail from the first church we visited, at Mount Carmel As a Catholic that made it to daily mass a couple of times a month at best, having a dedicated daily mass for our group every day of the trip was amazing and I was quickly spoiled by it.  We had mass in beautiful historic churches and because we were able to celebrate the mass, I felt so much more connected to the history of the faith and of the Ho...

July 25th is the Feast of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. Legends of Saint Christopher date as early as the third century.                               It is said that he was a giant of a man, so large he was able to ferry people across a river in his arms or on his shoulder.  On one trip, the legend goes, he nearly drowned carrying a child-who turned out to be Jesus.                                                                                    - The Book of Saints, Jenny Schroedel  When I got my first car, my mother gave me a small St. Christopher medal to hang on the rear view mirror.  While neither or us were practicing Catholics at the tim...

I don't think it's at all exaggerating to say that my life would not be where it is now had I not gone on a Pilgrimage to Israel back in October 2018. You see, International travel was not at all on my radar. Up to that point I had never spent more than two days away from my family, travel can be very expensive, and oh yeah, I have a debilitating fear of flying. So how in the world did I end up on an eleven hour flight to Tel Aviv?! It comes down to one simple word....Providence. While I have always been Catholic, I was recently (2015) confirmed as an adult through the R.C.I.A program at St Thomas Aquinas University Parish   which is served by Dominican Friars. The friar that taught the class was assigned to a different parish and we've been staying in contact through email ever since.  At some point in 2017 he shared how excited he was that his parish was going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and he would be going! Over the next couple of months we would discu...

In the manner of a longer introduction, I thought I would take you through the process of one of my paintings. Follow along with me as I describe this recent work, and myself.   Lets start with the basics, these are the materials I use. I really love Cason this mix media paper, because I don't work in just one medium and I also don't know what my pieces are actually going to turn out like when I start them! It's good to have a substrate that can deal with my whims.  My friend bought me this half pan set of watercolors from Sennelier, and they are absolutely amazing! They're so vivid and easy to use.  I use metallic pigments in literally everything I create, and while I currently use Pearlex powders mixed with gloss medium, this set of mica watercolors is on my wishlist! Add outlining with an archival ink pen and C'est fini.  Link below for all these supplies and more! When I was little, I would make 'weather maps'. These consisted of random circle...

A Test Post.... I'd love to share my story about my creative process and the ways in which my Catholic faith inspires me daily, so maybe this is the platform for that?