Claire Holoway from House of the White Rabbit has kindly written another blog that explains another of her amazing petri techniques. These cabochons are made with 1:1 epoxy resin and alcohol inks. They are just truly stunning!

Hi all. A lot of you ask me how I keep my in colours from muddying in my petri resin pendant cabochons. So, I thought I’d pull together some tutorial videos to show you how I achieve this. I am calling this ‘Lightning Technique’ – it’s completely original to me but I am happy to share. A shout out is always nice in your posts!!

We all know that there are some ink colours which muddy really easily. Usually they are the complimentary colours on the colour wheel, for example red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. There are two key parts to this Lightning colour separation process which will prevent these colours from muddying.

Firstly, you will require what I call a ‘splitter ink’. This is not a new kind of ink that anyone has manufactured; it’s what I term the very light pastel coloured ink that I use to separate my two main colours. For instance, in the Tim Holtz Ranger inks, I use Cool Peri, Salmon, Aqua, Cloudy Blue and Lemon Yellow in Limino. The splitter ink colour I use depends on the two main colours. For instance, where I am using purple and yellow, I would match it with Cool Peri as a splitter ink as it won’t overtake either colour and matches the purple. Another example would be to use salmon when creating pieces with blue and orange. For the same reason.

Secondly, you will need to learn how to place your ink’s within the cabochon. Virtually all petri work you will see demonstrated online presents the ink colours dropped at random. My placement is extremely specific. It is very important to place your inks at the edge of the cabochon and let them travel towards one another. The splitter ink goes in between the two main colours used and ONLY onto that do I drop the white sinker ink to create the petri effect. This creates a very thin “lightning bolt” line of petri – hence the name I have given to this particular technique.

For maximum effect, I usually pull light into dark or vice versa when swirling.

Enjoy the close ups of the petri formation. I could watch it all day long!