N^o 6: Eight Tools

In Chinese mythology, eight immortal Chinese deities are often represented as a group together. Each immortal’s power can be transferred to a tool of power: These eight tools are a gourd, a fan which gives life, a drum, a lotus flower, a basket with orchid, a magical sword, a flute and a musical instrument like castanets. They are considered to bring fortune and destroy evil. This fountain pen combines all these lucky symbols with excellent craftmanship - a powerful charm for the lucky owner.

In general, the artist works about two to three hours a day on one particular pen. If you include the waiting time to allow the Urushi lacquer to dry, the Maki-e fountain pen Eight Tools took two and a half months to be created.

The Maki-e Unique Collection model "Eight Tools" was created using a combination of the following Maki-e techniques:

The Togidashi-Maki-e technique

In this technique, the rare Japanese lacquer Urushi is applied in a multitude of layers which are polished many times. The design is drawn first with tracing paper and then with colored lacquer onto the surface of the fountain pen. It is then sprinkled with a multitude of lacquer-layers or gold and silver dust.

The Taka Maki-e technique

The artist mixes charcoal powder or gold powder into the lacquer, so that the pattern of the design is raised above the surface and a three-dimensional effect is created: If your thumb glides over the surface, you will feel the difference.

The Raden Maki-e Technique

In the raden technique, special parts of the abalone shell are used to decorate the fountain pen. Though the size of this shell is big, the blue colour part of the abalone is small. So it is necessary to select the best blue colour parts. The abalone shell is placed on the ground and flattened with a hard stone into very thin pieces. These piecess are then affixed to the coating of lacquer on the fountain pen. After this, the fountain pen is coated once again with lacquer, and then the surface is polished one more time.