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Boey was featured in Sharpie's print campaign, too!



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Our Cup Runneth Over with Cheeming Boey








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100 Ways to Start Something with Sharpie



  1. Create a personalized design on your t-shirt
  2. Design your jeans with a special emblem
  5. Design a skateboard with your own personal image
  6. Keep your drinks cool in your customized  koozies
  7. Show off your Sharpie markers to friends
  8. Collect Sharpie markers
  9. Label your stuff so nothing gets lost
  11. Design your TOMS shoes with Sharpie Markers
  12. Use your Sharpie marker to mark on difficult surfaces
  14. Sketch a picture with our Sharpie fine markers
  18. Make Christmas ornaments using Sharpie paint markers
  21. Color Easter eggs with Sharpie markers
  26. Design your backpack so it says something about you
  27. Doodle on a coffee cup using Sharpie Pen
  28. Decorate a picture frame
  33. Design a window
  34. Add a Sharpie marker doodle before shipping out a box
  35. Give your heart away with a Sharpie designed Valentine
  36. Spice up an old purse with fun Sharpie designs
  37. Customize a guitar with your musical expressions
  40. Celebrate with customized Sharpie markers
  41. Get sassy with Sharpie and post-it notes
  42. Make a calendar using poster boards and colored Sharpie markers
  43. DIY sunglasses with Sharpie markers to ensure yours are unique
  44. Repurpose old furniture with Sharpie paint
  45. Make blank canvas shoes say something about you
  46. Decorate stockings for your holiday hearth
  47. Create a gift tag with Sharpie extra fine markers
  49. Create a friendship bracelet with Sharpie retractable markers
  50. Customize your head band with your name in Sharpie markers
  52. Add some Sharpie swag to your photos
  53. Make robots out of dominoes
  55. Make your mark!
  58. Hug your Sharpie marker and tell it it’s safe
  60. Trade Sharpie markers with your friends
  61. Create a Christmas tree with green Sharpie markers
  62. Doodle in your notebook with Sharpie Pens
  63. Customize a scrapbook with Sharpie ultra fine markers
  66. Use the Sharpie Stencil technique
  67. Spruce up your Sharpie with a duct tape flower 
  70. Have a Sharpie marker doodle party
  71. Design your Halloween costume
  73. Customize your iPhone case with Sharpie markers
  76. Make your yoga mat stand out while you zen out
  77. Highlight without smearing with new Sharpie Gel Highlighter
  78. Write, erase and repeat with Sharpie Liquid Pencil
  79. Carry your Sharpie in your pocket with Sharpie Minis
  81. Be BOLD or slighlty subtle with Sharpie Twin Tips
  82. Write your school notes with Sharpie Pens
  83. Customize the back of your lap top
  84. Label your cup so it stays germ-free 
  86. Spice up your gym shoes with special designs
  87. Create custom Sharpie markers for a gift or special occasion
  89. Make a Sharpie marker collage by blending colors together
  91. Share you Sharpie marker creations at
  92. Use MySharpie for customized, fun party favors
  95. Write letters from your secret admirers using Sharpie pens
  96. Feel famous signing your autograph on sports equipment
  98. Spruce up invitations with Sharpie marker designs on the envelope


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New Works by Boey

Sharpie Squad member Cheeming Boey creates incredibly detailed art on an unexpected canvas. You have likely seen his coffee cup drawings before on the Sharpie Blog and across the web but new today, Boey shares some of his most recent renderings. I love the pop of color Boey incorporates into these new cups.

Tangled (1)

Tangled (2)

Tangled (2)

Buenos Vientos (1)

Buenos Vientos (2)

I'm Turtle (1)

I'm turtle (2)

Second Best (1)

Second Best (2)

Red (1)

Red (2)

 Scroll through more of Cheeming Boey’s art on his Flickr page and at his website,

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Cup ‘o Sharpie


It’s Stephanie’s turn!  Stephanie Williams is a Sharpie INKtern and this is her first post on the Sharpie blog.  She just graduated from DePaul U but is heading back in the fall for her masters.  She runs track at DePaul and has set all sorts of records.   For the record, Stephanie is a rock star intern…read her rock star post… 

Meet… Cheeming Boey 

Boey talks about his artwork in his Newport Beach apartment.

Boey talks about his artwork in his Newport Beach apartment.

” The styrofoam cup itself represents the pop culture we live in, and in some ways, is the epitome of 21st century technology.”

It’s a product we see every day. The styrofoam cup.  Parties, barbecues and picnics are all places we use them and then we just…throw them away. But not 31-year-old artist and animator, Cheeming Boey of Newport Beach, California; he creates art. Armed with a black Sharpie Pen, Boey draws images on cups that include intricate waves, birds and scenes of his life from Malaysia to Orange County.



 Q: Tell me a little about your business.

Boey: I draw on Styrofoam coffee cups. 

Q: How did you come up with the idea?

 Boey: I had no paper while I was craving to sketch one day outside a coffee shop, saw a cup on top of a trash can, took it and started drawing on the surface. I had forgotten how well ink flows on the Styrofoam surface. Its got a completely different feel from paper. Initially it was just with a ball point pen, I later moved to sharpie because I had some sharpies on my desk at work.

Equipped with his Sharpie.

Equipped with his Sharpie.

 Q: How are Sharpie markers incorporated?

 Boey: They are primarily what I use to draw on my cups now. I only use one fine point sharpie for all my line works. I know there’re several sizes, but part of the challenge I want to tackle is achieving different strokes with one pen.

 Q: What benefit do you think this offers and to who?

His "mistake" cups are the ones he drinks out of.


 Boey: People tend to think that drawings and paintings are always on canvases or paper.

I would like others to see that anything can be used as a canvas. You must have tried drawing with fries using ketchup, right? Why can’t that be serious art?

 It’s not what you draw on all the time; it’s the idea on it, or behind it. If the KFC recipe was sold on a napkin for a million bucks, I don’t think people are gonna say, “Nah, I don’t want it…it’s on a napkin.”

 The styrofoam cup itself represents the pop culture we live in, and in some ways, is the epitome of 21st century technology. Yet it is often overlooked, and when it ever brings attention, it stands for everything negative.

Showing his love for waves.

Showing his love for waves.

I believe there’s beauty in everything, including what we consider imperfect. I embrace the fact that it isn’t perfect. Sort of like the Wabi-Sabi movement in Japan.

 The fact that it is “cheap” and “disposable” makes it an unlikely subject for anything “special”. But it is that reason that I decided to draw on them. It also keeps one cup off the streets, if people are worried about Styrofoam waste.

 Q: Why are Sharpie markers a good fit for this? 

 Boey: Like how anything can be a canvas, I believe anything could be a tool as well.People are always surprised when I tell them I drew with a sharpie. A lot of them think it is liquid acrylics, or other fancy pens. “No, it’s with a sharpie.”The sharpie has a nice tip and it has a good consistent ink flow. It is also cheap. And cheap doesn’t mean bad.

 Q:  Tell us about some of your favorite designs.  Why do they resonate with you?

 Boey: I like the ones that are more personal, like a dining experience with a friend over sake and stories. I also like waves; hence a lot of my cups have a spaghetti-like, wave motif to it. One of my favorite Japanese artists who has influenced me heavily is Hokusai, and I think a lot about how he draws his waves when I draw mine.

 Q: What is the longest amount of time you have spent on one cup?

His cups sell for hundreds.

His cups sell for hundreds.

 Boey: 3 months. I don’t do initial drafts on the cups, so what you see is on the final product is the first pass. It takes forever to work on an elaborate piece because my next line could completely ruin the composition. Or I get nervous about drawing certain shapes. Or poses.

So sometimes I take hours to figure out the composition in my head, sometimes I don’t come back to it for months.

I have to also make sure the foam cups are absolutely lint/ hair free. They charge up easily and tiny hairs or lint can stick to it. And when the fine point on the sharpie catches one of these hairs, a thin line can suddenly become a broad stroke. Terrible.

More designs.

More designs.

Q:Do you think you’ll expand the idea to other items?

Boey: Sure. Anything is possible right?

Q: Anything else you’d like to add that I didn’t ask?

 Boey:I could use some free sharpies. I go thru about 1 every 2 days.


 View more of Cheeming Boey’s art at: