A method of sequencing nucleic acids, which can include steps of contacting a substrate having spatially distinguishable features with a plurality of nucleic acids to seed a subset of the features, thereby generating a seeded subset; amplifying the nucleic acids in the seeded subset to form nucleic acid colonies; repeating the preceding steps to increase the number of seeded features, thereby generating an array of nucleic acid colonies; and sequencing the array of nucleic acid colonies.