Let’s consider that a blank page is not truly blank. In fact, it’s anything but. While devoid of color, it’s infinitely colorful; teeming with possibilities for multicolored pens and literally covered in myriad life forms. Even the emptiest page is technically overflowing—with life. Do microbes respond to color on paper? Can spontaneous doodles give rise to new species? Inspired by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s term for microorganisms, this age-fluid book imagines a world where the smallest suddenly governs the largest. Its illustrations delve into morphological occurrences, eschewing the goal-oriented, the figurative, and the categorical. Despite following a traditional format, these pages aim to open up a creative bypass. To draw is to embrace mutational forms, and coloring in these pages invites an understanding that many possible forms—be it a bear or a bacterium—may emerge. We are what we draw. It’s time to let those animalcules express the potential colors of kingdoms to come.

This publication follows the Vegetable Teratology Colouring Book, also edited by Nina Canell & Robin Watkins and published by K. Verlag in 2019.