Science can be beautiful and this is never more evident than when studying subjects under a microscope. Louise Hughes hopes to bring the miniature worlds she works with to a wider audience through the medium of art, displaying striking images in an A3 sized wall calendar and high quality giclee art prints. Louise uses electron microscopes to image a diverse range of biological samples, from viruses, pollen grains, and insects through to mammalian tissues. She has brought together a collection of 12 images into a calendar format and has more available as art prints.
Louise’s Kickstarter project has a goal of £2,200, which will cover the printing costs of the calendars and the fine art prints. Her unique and beautiful rewards in return for donations range from copies of the calendar and postcards showing the images, through to frames and limited edition fine art prints. She is also offering an opportunity to commission unique images of a subject of your choice and even the experience for up to 5 people to use a scanning electron microscope for an afternoon, experiencing this fascinating instrument and technique at first hand!
Electron Microscopy.
There are many different types of microscope, producing a variety of data types. Electron microscopy has the advantage of being able to look at samples using a very high magnification and, more importantly, high resolution (the ability to distinguish between two points: If you think of the approaching headlights of car, the resolution of your eyes is the point at which you can see two headlights). The defining factor is that electron microscopy uses a beam of electrons rather than light to generate an image.
Looking at biological samples with an electron microscope poses a few challenges. These include problems in exposing the sample to a vacuum and the effects bombarding the biological tissue with a beam of electrons. It takes skills and experience to prepare the samples and use the microscope in a way that gets the most enlightening images and the best data. This can be both time consuming and costly, with some samples taking several weeks before they can be imaged.
The images produced in an electron microscope do not have colour (colour is a property of light, not electrons) so each image in this project has been is painstakingly coloured by hand to highlight and reveal the structures from an artistic point of view without changing their fundamental splendor.
Louise Hughes’ Bio.
Louise Hughes is a scientist by profession and artist in her personal life. She has been working in the field of biological electron microscopy for 13 years, focusing on the science aspect. She has done the artwork in her own time and used it to communicate science in outreach events across the UK. She has built a website and self funded all her artwork and science outreach. A successful Kickstarter campaign will support Louise by enabling her to taking her art to another level, so please spread the word and let others know about her fascinating and stunning miniature worlds.
