Sometimes when I see an artist’s work on one of our pens for the first time it elicits an immediate, soul-deep feeling inside of me. With Zelna le Roux’s Feathers painting, it was an instant feeling of peace. I would love to own this pen myself as I...
Yulia Glas has created something very, very special on this fountain pen. Her cranes in traditional Japanese colours of gold, red and blue, in a very traditional Japanese style, are phenomenal! We are so, so, so impressed and hope you are too! Lana has mixed a very...
Lisa Strachan has painted one of the most delightful and easy-to-grow garden flowers: Love in a Mist or Nigella. The first time I saw a photo of one of these flowers I immediately fell in love and ordered a packet of seeds online (in the days before such a things was...
Did you love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl? And do you have a soft spot for candy (or chocolate as it is known here and in the UK.) If so, you are going to love this pen. It was inspired not just by the story, but by original illustrations drawn by...
By training, Carla Nel is a graphic designer. By heart, she is an artist. And she always brings a fresh perspective to her paintings on our fountain pens. This painting of blue and teal flowers against a white background has such a light, fresh feel about it. And the...
Renée Gerstner’s tiger portrait shows an animal that is undoubtedly wild, and those eyes show a warmth that could turn from friendly to fiery in an instant. She has painted her tiger in a jungle, surrounded by tropical plants, and with colour-coordinated...
Hanna Farmer at her best! Her imagination has brought forth two steampunk octopi; the one on the barrel has on its head an entire factory generating steam and driving the octopus’s machinery; large, glassy eyes, tentacles that are magnificently decorated yet...
Hanna Farmer is famous for her doodles, and this one, titled Fragments, captures some of her philosophy on life: We tend to look at the world as through a kaleidoscope, only ever seeing tiny fragments; never the whole picture. In reality, the world is like a fabric...
Kseniia Nel’s Catching the Moon combines the styles of Gustav Klimt and Vincent van Gogh, in a beautiful, whimsical painting with an imperious cat and a serene woman under a starry night. In fact, Kseniia says that if her previous Van Gogh-inspired pen, Starry...
I love it when Lisa Strachan combines her botanic art with her whimsy … as in this delightful painting of Red Hot chili peppers on a fountain pen. Not only has she painted the chilis, but also added the pretty white flowers that result in these little fruits of...
Yulia Glas says it took her days and days to attach multi-coloured gold leaf to each and every petal on this painting. She said it was technically one of the most challenging fountain pens she has painted to date. And we believe it was worth it! Surely these are the...
This painting, by Yulia Glas, brings to mind relying on the stars and planets for one’s Celestial Travel – whether that be by starship, sailing ship, or out of body experience. The colours are mind-blowing. Sol and Luna feel like deities and the distant...
Yulia Glas’s Sage Shimmer is mesmerising – as you turn the pen the sage and silver colours look as if they are liquid glass, flowing beneath the surface. Against the blackest of black backgrounds, the foliage and butterflies seem to emerge from the...
The fifth in Hanna Farmer’s Circus Series: Circus Afro. Her imagination is mind-boggling. This pen features a ring master crow, a rabbit magician pulling an elephant out of the hat, a blind mole tapping its way across the tightrope, and … a zebra with a...
This Christmas Hanna Farmer has outdone herself in creating an utterly, utterly gorgeous pen featuring Christmas angels. While supermarkets are driving us nuts with their Krissmiss muzak and exhortations to indulge in the joys of over-consumption, Hanna has managed to...
Hanna Farmer’s, The Phantom, is inspired by the novel by Gaston Leroux which was originally published in 1909. Stage and film productions since then have added to the story, which features the disfigured Phantom, and the singer who has caputured his heart. The...
Kseniia Nel has painted this tribute to her favourite artist, Gustav Klimt, on a fountain pen, combining ideas for it from two of his most famous paintings: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and a portion of the painting Medicine. The latter was part of an enormous...
This painting by Hanna Farmer has so much pizzazz that if it were up for election it would win! If it were a stage show, it would be attract full houses every night on Broadway, and if it were a film it would be a blockbuster! The pen was made by us at Stanford Pen...
First Hanna Farmer painted The Blue Birds of Happiness on a fountain pen, and that sold almost instantly. Now she has painted The Green Birds of Happiness and again, using just a few shades of green, she has created birds with the most astonishing plumage. Her birds...
Lisa Strachan’s Clown Fish are brilliant! Just like Nemo, the main character on the barrel has a distinct personality of its own, and looks either contemplative or winsome and hoping for a kiss. And judging by the romantic colours Lisa has chosen … gorgeous...
Renée Gerstner is an artist who lives near the sea and is well known for her charming paintings of penguins, whales, seabirds, a penguin riding a bicycle (!), beach scenes, and now this lighthouse. In miniature. She has taken to painting fountain pens as if she had...
Kseniia Nel’s Masters in Fine Art shows in her deep appreciation of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. She has captured not only the atmosphere of the famous painting, but also the frenetic energy and vivid brushstrokes that defined the Dutch...
Once upon a time there was a golden horse … . Yulia Glas has been painting magical creatures lately and this beautiful, magical, golden horse stands out as being extraordinary. The horse is painted in two tones of gold, bright gold and rose gold; with a...
We are delighted to introduce a new fountain pen artist, Renée Gerstner. Her very first pen, featuring koi, also knowns as living jewels, was a challenge for her but one we think she excelled at. Her fishes have a zen-like nature about them. The two on the barrel form...
Kseniia Nel has created such a fascinating painting on one of our fountain pens. These must be the magical moonlight feathers from some fantastical creature! Under normal light the feathers look wonderful. Against a teal background, the feathers are outlined in...
In this spectacular painting, Yulia has combined hummingbirds, with their intense, iridescent plumage, and lavender with its purples and violets and hints of green foliage, against a gold leaf background. The (imitation) gold leaf is extra special : it has a rose gold...
Yulia has painted two of the rare big cats comforting one another on this very special pen. On the left is a snow leopard and on the right an Amur leopard. They are painted against a silver-leaf background with a winter scene depicted in glittering violet, turquoise,...
Using just a few shades of blue, Hanna Farmer has created The Blue Birds of Happiness in the most glorious plumage. Her birds are fabulous, exotic creatures against a buff background. The pen was made by us at Stanford Pen Studio, painted and doodled by Hanna then...
Space Jam by Brandon Lodewyk Mates in space, jammin’ together Just for a little bit. Not knowing what they are about to create Will be the perfect fit. People loved it so much; crowd favourites they became, The asteroids pose no threat, The fancy dance moves...
Kseniia Nel has used a subtle palette to create this ethereal pattern … twilight-grey, shadow-blue, the flowers outlined in black, burnished pewter, and wisps of moonshine-silver that appear and then vanish again as you turn the pen. It has a magical aura and it...
Rhythm of the Night by Brandon Lodewyk So when the Big Wild Cats come to the city It’s always going to be a party And it ain’t goin’ to be pretty. Mr D.J. looking fly on deck Playing big party anthems is what we can expect. The sound waves will be so...
What an elegant fountain pen Yulia Glas has painted! Her spirals in tiny dots of gold are intertwined with leaves and flowers. Using a very limited range of colours she has managed to create a magical effect. Speaking of colours, Yulia discovered this Super Black...
Yulia Glas’s art on this fountain pen makes me think of what it would be like to paint with stardust. Her delicate floral pattern change from sapphire to violet as the light strikes it at different angles. And the background is painted with a special colour she...
Yulia Glas loves cats and she loves porcelain, and the two go together so well. Here she has painted cats in a Delft blue against a white background on our Jabulani model fountain pen. Her cats are cute, with floral patterns on their coats, matched with bows, ribbons...
Yulia Glas was aiming for a stained glass effect when she painted these poppies on one of our pens. She says it took her many, many layers to achieve the look she was hoping for … she used a glass bottle she had painted with poppies some time back and tried to...
Hanna Farmer’s artwork on this pen celebrates an haute couture studio in Paris in the late Victorian era. It was a time of ruffles, rouches, lace, ribbons, bows, crinoline cages, bustles, bustiers, voluminous petticoats, corsets stiffened with whalebone and...
Somehow Julia Glas has managed to shrink a huge wall painting of people on the beach down to a miniature painting on a fountain pen. Hello Summer! is the astonishing result. She has taken a unique perspective of people on the beach, viewing them from directly above....
Carla Nel’s tattoo sleeve designs on our pens are proving very popular and this pattern would make a stunning tattoo. It certainly makes a stylish fountain pen! Her floral design is stylised and symmetrical, with almost an heraldic feel about the arrangement of...
When Brandon Lodewyk thinks of the concept ‘harmony’ he immediately thinks of Africa … of freedom, of peace, of coming together as one. The concept of Ubuntu, which became internationally known when it was expressed by our late president Nelson...
Yulia’s butterflies are glorious! And beautifully offset against the mottled gold, or rainbow gold-leaf background. Each of our hand-painted fountain pens is a 1/1 original work of art. No-one else will ever own an identical pen, however if you would like to...
What a stunning pen. Kseniia Nel’s Burnished Leaves is the epitome of understated elegance. With a less-is-more aesthetic, her leaf motif against a solid black background is instantly eye-catching. On closer inspection, one notices that the leaves have actually...
Dreamland, painted by Hanna Farmer, shows whales sleeping as they do, suspended nose-up, tail-down in the water. Who knew! In the distance are other whales, shown as pale white dotted outlines, and shoals of pastel fish, which adds to the dreamy atmosphere. The pen...
The story of the Trojan Horse is part of a long-running conflict between the Greeks and the people of Troy. Hanna Farmer has painted many scenes from this period in miniature on this fountain pen. These scenes include the Trojan Horse, which ended the war when it was...
Hanna Farmer’s Exotic Birds are fabulous in their glittering plumage of silver, cyan, azure, jade, tourmaline, and aqua, and their beaks of jasper. Her background is a buff-white with wispy clouds of pastel violet and sky-blue. Like her birds, her glorious...
Dragons are beautiful but The Ice Dragon is in a class of its own. Kseniia Nel has created the most magnificent dragon … muscular with magnificent wings, terrifying with deadly spurs at the edge of each wing and talons capable of eviscerating their foes, armoured...
Kseniia’s Nel’s Magical Leaves is the epitome of elegance. I just love her subtle, sophisticated designs. The dark background has a dusting of silver and gold which gives a lustrous effect. The leaves curl gracefully up the body of the pen in shades of...
Hanna Farmer’s Gypsies is one of her best ever doodles on a fountain pen. She has captured the romantic mystique surrounding these travellers … their wagons, their music and dancing, their beauty and the ability to tell your fortune. For there is a...
Yulia Glas’ has painted these glorious orchids in a pearlescent pink against a green background that also has a pearlescent sheen. She has added a delicate, scrolled and dotted pattern at either end of the pen. We have completed the pen by mixing a custom resin...
Yulia Glas manages to capture my heart with her cute paintings and this one is seriously adorable. It reminds me of reading picture books to our boys when they were really little and the gorgeous illustrations that we would point out to them. Bunny rabbits were a...
Inspired by The Untouchables, these scenes drawn and painted by Hanna Farmer feature the special team of agents who were handpicked for being incorruptible, hence known as The Untouchables, in the fight against organised crime in Chicago in the 1930s. Working in...
Copacabana, is a pen painted by Hanna Farmer, as part of her series called, The Mob. The scenes were inspired by the movie Goodfellas, which is based on a novel Wise Guys, which was in turn based on a true story. It is a tale filled with crime, murder, paranoia and...
Inspired by the books and movies, The Godfather I and II, Little Italy, painted by Hanna Farmer, as part of her series called, The Mob. In such a tiny space, she has managed to portray Don Corleone, head of a fictional Mafia family. The barrel has a scene of the young...
Hanna Farmer finds doodling meditative, and this design in particular has a Zen feel about it. Hence, a zendoodle. She has used fresh colours of greeny-blue and yellowy-green, and we have added a section material that reminds me of the inside of a lime. With accents...
Fish Bubbles is a pen painted by Hanna Farmer at her whimsical best. She has doodled a young woman blowing bubbles, with fish in them. The fish look perfectly content as they float around in their bubbles, and she looks happy, her hair cascading down with paper boats...
Hanna’s Sous Chef reminds me of the animated film Ratatouille, with the rat that had a refined palate and was able to cook up the most mouthwatering meals. in her drawing, Hanna has mice concocting recipes, snipping herbs, adding seasoning, and a hen helping...
Yulia Glas’s black magic cats are exceptional. Each one has an inscrutable expression and is clearly bewitching. How Yulia manages to write the titles on the books’ spines is beyond me! They include: How to Fly a Broom; The Witches; Full Moon; Magic I and...
Kseniia Nel’s mythical cat series continues with The Bindi Cats. Her painting depicts cats covered in the most magnificent patterns of dark teal, lighter blue, light grey, charcoal grey and silver. She has also painted a crescent moon, stars, a silver-spangled...
Rainbows have so many happy associations for us. We love the warm, inclusive, welcoming, diverse nature of the fountain pen community and although Yulia Glas’s Mosaic Rainbow painted pen was not originally intended this way, we are proud to see it as a symbol of...
Carla Nel was prompted to paint a fountain pen with psychedelic colours and magic mushrooms. As it happens, Carla is a mushroom fanatic and has been drawing them for years, so these ‘shrooms are not only beautiful, they are also anatomically correct!!Her colours...
Val Myburgh’s (@valburgh) painting, Cats in Windows, features not only the most gorgeous cats (and a mouse), but also has the most fascinating window shapes and interesting brickwork. Each window is different and each cat clearly has a character of its own. Val is of...
A very special commission recently completed by Val Myburgh (@valburgh): a 78th birthday pen. It features a few of the recipient’s favourite things including a bible verse, his vintage Packard, a braai (barbecue), The Mariners and The Seahawks, as well as playing...
A commissioned pen painted by Zelna le Roux. This very cute bird was a commission requested by a son who used to travel with his dad. This was their favourite bird, especially where the bird turns its head at an angle. His dad can’t travel any more. This was the...
A commission by Hanna Farmer (@hanna_designs_art): The Stoker’s Son, also featuring The Stoker, his pet Gizmo, and his steampunk flying machines.If you would like to request a commissioned painting on a fountain pen by Hanna, please send us a message. The...
Kseniia Nel is besotted with dragons. These two in their Dragon’s Den are Asian dragons and therefore have no wings, and do not breathe fire. They have typical nose tendrils (useful as most Chinese dragons were associated with water spirits and therefore needed...
Brandon’s graphite sketch, Balance, refers to how we are all striving to achieve that state of perfect balance in our daily lives. (I can so relate to this … I keep thinking that when I get the next chore done … when I get my admin in order …...
This fountain pen is a tribute to the film, Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, and to the moral of the story behind the film. We are thrilled that this pen is featured in the current issue of Pen World Magazine. The images on the barrel depict the dancer striving...
Carla Nel is crazy about mushrooms, snails, faerie folk, butterflies, tattoos … and has now combined these elements into a tattoo sleeve. (In other words a single cohesive design that could be tattooed over a large area such as an entire arm, giving the...
Kseniia Nel’s has strong memories of magnolias heralding spring in her homeland, Ukraine, and painted these flowers in celebration of their flowering season. She has showcased them against a pale blue background with a pearlescent gold shimmer that catches the...
This pen has the most amazing golden-orange-flame shimmer. It really looks as if it glows from within. Kseniia Nel has painted two phoenix birds, representing the old and the new. According to mythology, only one phoenix is alive at a time, and can easily live to 500...
Fantasy beetles of all shapes and sizes adorn this stunner of a pen by Yulia Glas. We have called it Beetlemania. They are in the most dazzling colours, with lots of sparkles, against a glossy black background. The effect is terrific. These guys would put the...
The story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is fascinating, and through tremendous research Hanna Farmer has managed to capture much of the history and legend on this pen. She has drawn Merlin, holding his staff with an owl nesting on top, the Lady of...
Hanna Farmer’s Picasso-inspired fountain pen has so many details it will take its owner months to find each one. There are ‘a few of her favourite things’ in this semi-self-portrait, with a cup of coffee, a Yorkie named Gizmo … who might also...
Kseniia Nel has painted this pen in a very distinctive style, with two serene, stylised ladies holding two very charismatic cats. The woman on the cap has on a blue dress and is holding a golden-ginger cat. The one on the barrel has golden-ginger hair and is holding a...
What a luscious pen! Yulia Glas has painted her favourite fruits: raspberries, blackberries, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, plums, blackcurrants, red currants, bilberries, cranberries, gooseberries, hippophae and peach blossoms. With their deep green leaves...
One of the most complex designs Hanna Farmer has ever painted on a fountain pen is this tribute to Antoni Gaudi. Hanna has always loved his work and has visited many of his architectural masterpieces in Barcelona. In this pen she reflects his fascination with natural...
Kseniia Nel’s painting of magnolias on one of our fountain pens has a bold yet refined quality. This pen features magnolias in a range of pinks, from a pale off-white, to dusky pastel pink, to a more intense cerise that blends into a deep pink on the same bloom....
Yulia Glas loved painting this pen. She included The Tree of Life against a gold background, a brilliant mandala-style sun in a rainbow of colours, night and day represented by the sun and moon in a yin-yang type juxtaposition, iridescent doves, another tree and lots...
Inspired by the enthusiastic reaction she got to Beetlemania, Yulia Glas has painted another bling bug fountain pen, this time called Jewel Bugs. Also on a black background, she has painted a ’70s psychedelic Bvlgari dragonfly with different patterns on every...
On the barrel, the fox is leaping for the orange butterfly. (The other butterflies are in monochrome.) In the foreground there is a close-up of the fox, with its black-socked legs stretched in front of it. On the cap, the butterfly is giving the fox a kiss on the...
Yulia Glas loves luxe! She painted the background in a sumptuous emerald that has a glorious sheen. And as one tilts the pen in the light the colour shifts from emerald to teal with a hint of gold. It is the colour of velvet on a queen’s gown as she moves from...
Owls’ Landing is a magical place, or a space, that exists in Hanna Farmer’s imagination, and that so real I feel I have been there too. She has painted this space in a nighttime dusky blue, with owls in flight, carrying entire cities on their backs....
Yulia Glas loves dragonflies so much she has painted these ones against an emerald-sheen background. Inspired by the dragonflies’ gossamer wings that change colour in the sunlight, she painted the backdrop in a colour-shifting paint that transforms from an...
Yulia Glas adores this pen! She said she strained her eyes getting the details on the mermaid’s portrait just right, and when she realised she could not find a paintbrush fine enough to paint the maiden’s face, she resorted to using a pin to create the...
Have you ever dreamed of riding a dragon? Of a ferocious, fire-breathing, steampunk dragon allowing you to put a bridle on it and even kiss its snout? Ever since seeing the film, How to Train Your Dragon, I have wished it were possible! Hanna Farmer is not restricted...
Yulia Glas loves Chinese art, porcelain and jewellery, and knows that Imperial Jade is the most valuable of all gems, more rare and more expensive than diamonds. She painted this Imperial Dragon, showing deference to the decree in 1315 that only an emperor could wear...
It took Yulia Glas at least twice as long to paint this pen as any one she had painted to date. And no wonder! Not only did she paint two cats, two kittens, several mice, and thirty books on the pen, she also wrote the titles to all 30 books on their spines! From...
I cannot look at Val Myburgh’s painting of Space Pandas without cracking up. Her pandas are so deadpan, one nibbling on a piece of bamboo while riding in a rocket ship, another holding on to a balloon that is sailing in the sky. Inscrutable, while I am...
Lana le Roux’s The Joy of Blue brings to mind Keats’s sonnet celebrating the colour, which includes the lines: Blue! ‘Tis the life of waters–oceanAnd all its vassal streams: pools numberlessMay rage, and foam, and fret, but never canSubside if not to...
The colours on this fountain pen are jewel-like. Yulia Glas painted hydrangeas, but with petals that look as if they are made of stained glass. She achieved this effect by covering the pen body in gold leaf, then painting on top of it in a translucent ink, that has...
We are delighted that Lana le Roux has created her second art pen, this time called Romantic Ferns. She started by painting a dark mulberry background, then layering increasingly lighter shades of colour by pressing ferns on to paint (grading from aubergine to pale...
Recent Comments