Maximum Practical
Painted fountain pens
Hand-Painted fine art fountain pens
Tiny paintings on functional objects
I love fountain pens: restoring vintage pens, reading about vintage pens, talking about pens, writing with pens, and decorating pens.
Every pen is one of a kind—I do not duplicate pen designs, at least not currently. I also paint fountain pen converters.
I currently take commissions only very occasionally. The best ways to get a painted pen are:
check in Franklin-Christoph’s stock room, or
find me at a pen show table.
desk candy
Photo by S.C. Franklin
One-of-a-kind, hand-painted Fountain pens that personalize your writing experience
A detailed process with wisp-like brushes
What’s the process?
Each pen takes between 8-15 hours to design and paint.
Designing the art and layout: While some of the design is spontaneous, multiple hours may be spent hunting for reference images, developing a concept, and sketching. Designing for a cylinder, as well as for a small visual object, brings its own set of challenges.
Prepping the pen surface: Depending on the planned coverage and pen material, the pen surface may need to be disassembled, sanded and cleaned.
Painting multiple layers: The painting itself usually takes place over several days, as layers must dry, additional resource images may need to be sourced. Sometimes I carve the paint. Errors may need to be sanded since on a small object, the texture of built up paint layers is extremely obvious and may not always be desirable.
Varnishing: Pens must be varnished/lacquered as they are meant to be handled and used. The varnish helps to prevent flaking and removal of the acrylic paint.
Finishing: Removing bubbles in varnish, removing paint or varnish from undesired locations, reassembling pen.
Watch this here video to learn about the design process I use for art on a pen.
MOONLIGHT SONATA FOUNTAIN PEN
My art, printed on a pen
I recently had the opportunity to work with a stationery store—Endless Pens, through their HATCH program—to produce a fountain pen with the Opus 88 brand and my artwork.
This was a challenging project in many ways but I’m so proud of how it turned out. Plus, it makes an art pen more affordable!
What’s so great about fountain pens?
Oh, I don’t know.
I like to say that each pen engages me in a different conversation. It changes the way I think, encourages different words, even different kinds of thoughts, to form in my brain.
Some pens—the way the ink flows, the way the nib feels on paper— are great for brainstorming. Some are better for when I want to be thoughtful with my words.
And then, in combination with aesthetics, and weight of the pen, and ink flows and ink color and paper texture well….
If you are a person that is particular about tactile experiences, you might just fall in love with fountain pens, too.
