How to draw microscopic cells

I got my first images off google and started doing some drawing in relation to the project. I started off trialling my watercolour technique. It turned out the be a very long process with the small circles over and over again and took a very long time. Although it looked effective I don't think that it was worth the time spent and I started to look for other ways to draw.

I then took my fine liner and started doodling small cell details from a book I own called the book of palms where it has a section on cross sections. these little drawings took far less time and allowed me to think about what I was doing instead of spending ages on one drawing I could spend less time trialling and experimenting with different cell structures and shapes. These little drawings helped me realise fine liner was a good technique for picking up the detailed lines and shapes of the cells without things running or bleeding like the watercolour. I loved how they came out and I decided I wanted to take this idea further and spend a little more time on some images.

I then started to look and drawing with coloured fine liner so I could get the bright colours of the cells in the work. I soon realised that although these looked pretty they weren't anything particularly special and I actually preferred the line drawings without colour as then you focused on how detailed they were rather than the bright colours.

I started trying to see what would happen if I made the coloured fine liners bleed on the page. I loved how this kept the detailed parts of the cells faintly but at the same time gave the cells a movement. The watercolour made the artwork more interesting and I loved how the colours blended in with each other to create a flow.

Scanning all these drawings in was the next step within the work.