A ballpoint pen, also known as a "biro"[1] and "ball pen", is a pen that dispenses ink over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". The metal commonly used is steel, brass or tungsten carbide.[2] It was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to quill and fountain pens and is now the world's most-used writing instrument:[3] millions are manufactured and sold daily.[
Ballpoint pens have proven to be a versatile art medium for professional artists as well as amateur doodlers.[22] Low cost, availability, and portability are cited by practitioners as qualities which make this common writing tool a convenient, alternative art supply.[23] Some artists use them within mixed-media works, while others use them solely as their medium-of-choice.[24]
Effects not generally associated with ballpoint pens can be achieved.[25] Traditional pen-and-ink techniques such as stippling and cross-hatching can be used to create half-tones[26] or the illusion of form and volume.[27] For artists whose interests necessitate precision line-work, ballpoints are an obvious attraction; ballpoint pens allow for sharp lines not as effectively executed using a brush.[28] Finely applied, the resulting imagery has been mistaken for airbrushed artwork[29] and photography,[30] causing reactions of disbelief which ballpoint artist Lennie Mace refers to as the Wow Factor.[28][29]
Famous 20th Century artists such as Andy Warhol, among others, have utilised ballpoint pens to some extent during their careers.[31] Ballpoint pen artwork continues to attract interest in the 21st Century, with contemporary artists gaining recognition for their specific use of ballpoint pens; for their technical proficiency, imagination and innovation. Korean-American artist Il Lee has been creating large-scale, ballpoint-only abstract artwork since the late 1970s.[22] Since the 1980s, Lennie Mace creates imaginative, ballpoint-only artwork of varying content and complexity, applied to unconventional surfaces including wood and denim.[32] The artist coined terms such as PENtings and Media Graffiti to describe his varied output.[28] More recently, British artist James Mylne has been creating photo-realistic artwork using mostly black ballpoints, sometimes with minimal mixed-media color.[30] In the mid-2000s (decade) Juan Francisco Casas generated Internet attention for a series of large-scale, photo-realistic ballpoint duplications of his own snapshots of friends, utilising only blue pens.[33]