JenAmbrose Design in Progress

  I first heard about this Marian devotion when a friend of mine was struggling with a problem and asked me to pray this particular novena. Halfway through I realized I was praying this for myself as much as for them! The most popular image of this Mary is a painting by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner where she is seen untying knots in a long ribbon, and was inspired by the work of St. Irenaeus of Lyons where he presents a parallel between Eve and Mary, describing how "the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith." Her feast day is celebrated on September 28 th , but you can pray for her intersession any time. Mother of fair love, I look to you. Take into your hands the ribbon of my life, and see the snarl of knots that keeps me bound to sin, anxiety, and hopelessness. I beg you, Mother, by your powerful intercession and long fingers...

Thinking about the feast days for this month, I came across St. Rose of Lima. Before writing this I didn't know that much about her, other than that she was a Dominican.  She's also the patron saint of gardeners and florists which is really cool, but what immediately caught my eye in the google search was an article with a special prayer for her intersession for exhausted mothers. As a mom who's attempting to balance work, family and a small art business, I often find myself overwhelmed and yes, exhausted. St. Rosenof Lima, pray for us!  St. Rose, devout Virgin, fragrant rose in the garden of God, sweetly blooming amid the thorns of distressing tribulation and severe mortification, white as snow in the immaculate innocence of your heart, glowing in the love of God that consumed you. Your devotedness to your parents was so great that you labored night and day to relieve their poverty, and most tenderly cared for them in their sickness. Most grateful, most humble ...

  I grew up in Florida, and even though I've been living in Virginia for the last twenty five years, I still refer to myself as a native Floridian. So what does that have to do with being a Catholic Artist? Well, nothing really.  Except that the places that you live shape who you turn out to be as a person, and the art deco architecture of Southern Florida is certainly evident in my painting style, and perhaps also in my fascination with bold vibrant colors. Hale groves is based in my hometown, and every time I go back to Florida I make sure to stop by their store! I'm really excited to have this promo code for you to take 10% off some Florida goodness of your own! Subscribe to JenAmbrose Design in Progress by Email

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...