Hey there, friends. I'm Jennie Ambrose — the founder of LINE & Wash Paper Company. I am a self-taught, watercolor artist based in the charming old town of Clayton, North Carolina. I live here with my partner Alec, our daughter Ava Grace, and our two spirited dogs Coconut and Finley. My greatest hope is that you cannot help but smile when you see my illustrations. My art is heavily inspired by the life I live and all that surrounds me - nature, animals, family, and friends. My art is bright, and my color palette is vast. Picking a limited color scheme is one of the artistic rules that I just don’t follow.

Why LINE & Wash?

Simply put, line and wash is when you use ink to outline the edges of your subject and then use paint to fill in the color of the image. As a self-taught artist, I have spent countless hours watching others paint and studying the art of the greats. I recall watching a YouTube video about Beatrice Potter (the founder of Peter Rabbit); the narrator in the video was describing her art style as line and wash. I had never heard this terminology before, so I did what most people would probably do – I Googled it. To my surprise, this was the style in which I most frequently painted. Just then, I wrote down the words “line and wash” on a sticky note and tossed it to the side of my desk. When I finally decided to turn my artwork into paper products, there was only one brand name that kept coming to my mind: Line & Wash.

Let’s talk color!

First place for watercolor paintstones goes to a small Indigenous owned business based out of Canada called Beam Paints. Their focus on quality pigments and color ranges surpasses any others on the market. Second place, in my book, goes to the German art company H. Schmincke & Co, which has been awarded the title “Brand of the Century” multiple times. Rounding out my watercolor paint palette is Dr. Ph. Martin’s highly concentrated liquid watercolor paint pigments that come in small glass bottles. My go-to true red is their 28H Carmine.