THE PRINTING TABLE 0 / 4 colours
Pull the wooden handle down. The colour follows your hand.
Print the blue layer ↓ Preparing your printing table…
一版一色 · A COLOUR AT A TIMELayer by layer.A butterfly appears. Stretch out a little cotton. Keep the screen in place, and draw the squeegee towards you. Each pass adds another colour.
CHOOSE YOUR PATTERN Butterfly蝶恋花 Butterfly Lattice蝶花格 Pink Flowers on Blue Grid蓝格粉花 Chrysanthemum蝶恋花 · 菊花 Butterfly Garden蝶恋花 · 百花 Flower Lattice蝶恋花 · 花格 Flower花开 Peony牡丹 Choosing another pattern starts a fresh cloth. 01 / CHOOSE YOUR CLOTH ▧ A single motif▦ Across the cloth
The same motif repeats in a 3 × 3 arrangement. 02 / YOUR COLOURS, ONE PATTERN
Tap an ink pot to change its colour. You can recolour printed areas, too.
Original Plum garden Blue hour Warm earth
Layer 1 Deep blue The ground and the little triangles.
Next Layer 2 Soft pink A softer colour in the wings and corners.
02 Layer 3 Leaf green The body, wing details and curved borders.
03 Layer 4 Vermilion red Dots, antennae and the last details.
04 Layer 5 Deep blue Blue flowers, leaves and cool details.
05 Layer 6 Coral pink Coral-pink petals and floral details.
06 Layer 7 Sage green Sage-green foliage and floral details.
07 Layer 8 Warm yellow Warm yellow highlights and butterfly details.
08 Colour for layer 1 · Ground & triangles
Mix your own #104c80 Restore original colours ↺ A screen colour study. Fabric and printing inks will give their own colour in real life.
FROM PRINT TO REAL CLOTH One pattern. Two surviving colourways. Explore the original vintage chrysanthemums and butterflies behind this colour study. Each item has its own size, condition and Etsy listing.
The printing exercise is a modern visual demonstration, not a reconstruction of the original workshop plates or historical process. Make a cloth of butterflies ↗ How does the printing work? In this simplified screen-printing study, open areas of each colour screen let colour reach the cloth. Registration keeps the layers aligned; repeating the motif makes a larger design.
This is a colour-printing experiment, separate from indigo resist dyeing. Its layer order is illustrative, not a verified production sequence for a historic textile. Colour regions follow the reference image; this does not simulate inks mixing where screens overlap.
Read about screenprinting at the V&A ↗ Based on the supplied butterfly illustration. The original cloth also includes flowers; this study repeats only the butterfly tile.
See the supplied colour reference ↗ Try indigo resist in the courtyard ↗ 
