In February-March 2018, Briony, Jacqui and Gregory ran four weeks of art-science workshops at Ipswich Art Gallery. We taught two workshops a day during the week, then on weekends from 10 – 5, gallery staff ran the activity as an open house, drop-in, art-science lab.

Now a Scale Free Network ‘classic’, the ‘Microscope-Drawing Workshop’ begins with an introduction to the theme of art & science, and looks at some historic examples of how the two disciplines have interconnected – with a particular focus on microscopic world. We then take students on a journey down the scale bar of distance, starting with kilometres, passing through micrometres, nanometres and onwards towards zeptometres….what can be found at each scale? How far can our technologies allow us to ‘see’?

We then divide the group into two and spend 30 – 45 minutes at two stations:

1) Exploring, observing and drawing objects using the stereomicroscope (magnification 20 – 40x)

2) Exploring, drawing and reinterpreting high magnification imagery (400 – 1,000 000x) using overhead projectors.

Finally, we conclude the session with a group debrief where we reflect on what we have seen and discuss the artwork created.

We met so many enthusiastic and curious young artists-scientists, teachers and parents on this, our fourth residency in the Children’s Gallery. Thank you at Ipswich Art Gallery for hosting us. We will be back!

…And here are some more images of drawings inspired by observation through the stereomicroscope.