I LOVE Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty

n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.

3. An instance of making such a discovery.

This is what happened this week when I decided to do a little first of the year (dare I say it) CLEANING in my studio.

I have a tendency to put all my left over clays to the side on my work table.  I have a tile set there that accumulates scraps of clay.  Usually I wait till I have a goodly amount, and then mix it all together for bead guts or the base of a veneer (if the color is right).  

   It was time for the wading of the clay.  I started running it through my PM to blend, but for some reason I happened to actually LOOK at the colors the blending was making.  Maybe it was because my studio TV no longer works and I was not distracted, but I noticed that the colors created stripes - so  I stacked them.

Side view of stack

Then I sliced the stack long ways and laid the slices on a base.  After braying to flatten, I rolled the resulting piece length ways through the PM to thin it.  

Used this sheet as a veneer.  I am amazed that this resulted from mixing my left over clays. This is so not the color palette that I normally gravitate to, but is the result of colors that  I normally use. Weird.  It kinda resembles wood grain.  

The shine comes from using shoe polish as a finish. I read somewhere about
using this as a finish.  Curious to see how long it lasts

Needless to say, I did not get much cleaning done in the studio. But I did spark a bit of creative fever and hopefully help get me out of the winter slump.

I just bought Lydia Moseley's latest tut on Faux Finishes.  Have not had time to do more than just give it a quick first read through.  Oh, goodie, (clapping hands with joy) there is SOOOO much information AND it looks like I HAVE to make a trip to a craft store for even more stuff.  Well, it is actually a sunny day and a trip to the outside world for something other than work will do me good.