How to Organize 684 Pens, Pencils, and Markers

You’re sitting down in your studio about to create, and you can’t find your favorite pens and markers. Then you start the hunt, spending half of your creative time trying to find your markers or organizing them so that you can start on your project. 

If this happens to you, you’re not alone! I’ve been so frustrated with my creative space over the last few months that today I’m pulling out all 684 of my pens, pencils, and markers to reorganize them. Join me as we talk about ways to go from crazy clutter to a beautiful, organized space!

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Starting the Organizational Journey

This whole process started in July of last year. I had just finished up the last of my teaching commitments for the summer and my art studio was a disaster! Trying to make it to my desk through the piles of completed projects and art supplies on every available surface was overwhelming. I had a moment of feeling so frustrated that I wanted to throw everything out!

You know you’re in a bad place when you want to get rid of all your precious art supplies because it feels like it’s killing your creativity instead of helping you find it!

It was time to start pulling apart my entire creative space to get organized. I started by gathering up all my pens, pencils, and markers in their assortments of pencil cases, random tins, boxes, and miscellaneous other containers to see what I owned. Just getting an idea of the scope was an important first step to getting organized. 

As I started to get organized, I found that I had so many pens and markers that I forgot I owned in random places around my studio. It made me feel like one of the squirrels I see scampering around in my garden. They spend all their time collecting nuts and hiding them amongst the flowers and they don’t always find them again.

I feel that way with my art room. I’ve squirreled away so many beautiful things that I don’t use. It’s unfortunate and a little embarrassing to know I own so much, and I don’t use these beautiful things because I can’t find them.

It was time to solve this problem. It was time to come up with a great organizational plan that would be useful not just today but, in the years, to come.

Choosing the Perfect Pen Organizational System

There’s a lot of options out there, so what do we choose? It really depends on how you create and the space set aside for you to create in. Do you have a large space with a lot of desk and counter space? Or do you have a tiny desk with a bit of vertical storage (like on a book shelf). Or do you need a more portable solution?

Depending on the space you have, this will dictate what organizational system you choose. Trying to choose one that is beautiful, but not practical for your space is like trying to keep a large horse in a small apartment. It technically could work, but isn’t practical.

Keep in mind that you need to look at it in context with all your other art supplies and the space that it needs. For me, I decided one 12×12 inch cube was all the storage that I could spare for my pens.

Understanding Your Workflow

How do you like to use your pen, pencil and marker collection? Do you use paint pens the most? Or are gel pens or colored pencils your favorite medium? Do you ever use multiple types of pens and pencils together?

There are also some aesthetic questions to ask. Do you like to keep all your pencils, pens and markers grouped by color? Or by type or brand?

By understanding your workflow, this will dictate how you organize your pens, pencils and markers.

Think of this like how you would organize fruit in your kitchen. Do you prefer to keep all the oranges, apples and grapes together in a bowl because they are on hand, washed and ready to eat?  Or do you prefer to keep them organized by type? So that when you go to make a pie, you can find all your fruit in the same place? Neither way is wrong, it’s just different depending on how you like to use them.

Organizational Options

There’s a lot of different organizers out there, here are a few I’ve tried and used with mixed success.

The Slotted Organizer

The slotted organizer works well if you have a large art space. They are either plastic trays that can be stacked or they are an organizer that comes as a plastic cube. For pens that you use all the time or want to have on display they do work well. They just take up a lot of space.

I originally used this design of holder from alcohol ink markers. It’s useful for alcohol ink markers because it will let you see all the different pen names. This is important when you’re choosing color blends. But I found that it wasn’t space efficient. When all my Spectrum Noir alcohol ink markers dried out, I ended up putting this away because it wasn’t that practical for my other pens.

Cups or Containers

This is a great way to organize your pens and markers on a budget. You can get some beautiful containers for storing your pens that can add to the aesthetic of the room. If you are on a budget, you can upcycle things like glass jars or yoghurt containers, decorate them and use them for holding your pens.

This works well if you have many of one type of art marker. Or perhaps you have hundreds of colored pencils that you want to group them by color. This doesn’t work as well if you only have a few of each type of marker or pen. It means that you’ll spend a lot of time searching to find the pen or pencil you’re looking for.

This type of solution is inexpensive, but it requires a lot of counter space. If you are in a small space like I am, this isn’t a great solution because my counter space is limited and very valuable.   

Plastic Containers

If you have a ton of one type of pen, you can always store them in a plastic container and stack these on a shelf in your art space. The hard thing is that it means that you may need to dig them out to use them.

I have tried this method with my Tombow Dual Brush Markers as I prefer to store them horizontally. This makes sure that the ink in the pen is equally distributed to both nibs. But I found that my box of markers would get buried, I’d forget about them, or they were a hassle to retrieve. 

Pencil Cases

Pencil cases are an excellent option. You can fit a lot of pens in a small amount of space and you can organize them by type so that all of your pens are in one place together. These come in a range of sizes and I love this solution if I want to grab a set of pastels, watercolor pencils or markers and just go.

The problem I had with this is that I had so many small pencil cases that I could fit more than 20 of them into my plastic cube. This meant I was back to rooting through my supplies trying to find what I owned.

My Favorite Solution

After trying all these other solutions, here’s my favorite storage solution that I’ve been using for the past 8 months, and it’s still working amazingly well! It’s a 300 slot large capacity pencil case. This organizer is made of good quality materials and has a high-quality zipper. When you open it up, you can flip through all of your pens, pencils and markers to see everything that you have in one case. 

This pencil case comes with elastic loops to hold all the pencils in place. I find that per loop you can fit 3 colored pencils, or 2 markers or pens. This means that each “page” in this pencil case holds 30 pencils or 20 pens or markers.

I love how visual and organized this pencil case is. You can see what you have at a glance and it holds a lot of pencils and pens for the size of the case. 

To make the most of this organizer, we need to go back to an earlier point. How do you like to organize your pencils, pens, and markers? Do you organize by type, by color or some other system? Here’s the approach that I took with my organization.

With my colored pencils, I didn’t separate by brand, but by color as I’m generally looking for the right shade of colored pencil. But for some of my pencils, like watercolor and pastel pencils, I only have one set by one brand. In this situation I stick with brand and type of pencil. 

For my paint pens and watercolor markers, because the type of ink and paint differs from brand to brand, I tend to organize by brand. But these decisions are up to you and how you like to work and organize your supplies.  

The Elephant in the Room

As much as I love these organizers, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: there is no perfect organizer or perfect organization system. Some brands will tell you that’s there’s one perfect system, but I don’t believe that’s true. It’s trying to figure out what will work for you that fits within your budget and your available space. 

I love these large high-capacity pencil cases, but was shocked when I realized I would need to buy THREE to even get close to managing my collection!

I had been a bit optimistic about how large my collection was. When I ordered them, I thought that one smaller (160 count pencil case) and one larger (300 count pencil case) would be enough to get the job done.

I quickly filled these and realized that I still had hundreds of pens that didn’t have a home. These pencil cases are an investment. They aren’t super expensive, but are also not the cheapest option available. But when you are space constrained and want to be organized, they are a great solution.

I was able to fit three of these pencil cases fit into a 12” by 12” cube with room for some smaller items along the side.

The other fantastic thing about these organizers is that even though they are stored upright in my bin, all the pens are horizontal. When you store pens or markers at a horizontal orientation, there is less chance for ink leaking or marker tips from drying out. 

Things to be aware of

These large organizers do get pretty heavy when full.  Mine weigh 4.25 lbs to 6.25 lbs when filled to capacity with pens, markers and pencils. But I tend to use these organizers in my art studio.

If I’m heading out to sketch, I grab a handful of my favorite pencils and pens from my large organizer and put them in my Etchr Field Case. This case fits a lot of pens for the small size and works with my Etchr Urban Sketching bag. 

What To Do with Big Pens and Accessories?

I found that these large pencil cases fit conventional size pens and markers well. But what if you have some large ones? Because I was trying to keep everything in my cube, I ended up with some awkward items that needed a home.

This is where my normal sized pencil cases came in. I used them to store my tortillons, erasers, sharpeners, and oversized markers. I grouped these items by type, and they each have their own distinctive pencil case, which makes them easy to find.

It would be nice to say there is one perfect solution, but there isn’t. I just figured out the solution that works best for me. I hope that this gives you the ideas that you need to be able to organize your studio in a way that helps with your creativity.

Looking for the Best Paint Pen?

So maybe your problem isn’t that you have to organize pens, pencils, and markers in your space. Perhaps you’re looking for the perfect paint pen for your creative practice. If that’s your struggle, check out this article next, “The Best Acrylic Paint Pens: A Paint Marker Comparison. In this article I do into an in-depth review of some of my favorite paint pens. Including what to look for when choosing a paint pen, and which ones work the best for my creative practice.

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