Featured Artist for the Months of March & April, 2025
Email: elvipakkanen@yahoo.ca
Elvi Pakkanen
Artist Bio:
Elvi Pakkanen describes herself as a left-brained, right-brained artist. Having worked in the accounting and finance fields as a Chartered Professional Accountant, her thinking was logical, analytical and orderly; completely opposite to an artist, who is associated with creativity, intuition and spatial patterning. Her brand while working was “A converter who changed problems into solutions in accounting and treasury”.
This dichotomy of left-brain, right-brain thinking is evidenced in her artwork both in the types of material she uses and in its application.
She is drawn to fluid art techniques, whether using watercolour, alcohol inks, acrylic ink, or acrylic paints. The unpredictability and spontaneity are fascinating and satisfies her right-brain. Enhancing this artwork with traditional styles of orderly painting, graphics and linework, satisfies her left-brain.
She started with watercolours, enjoying the fluidity and unpredictability when she allowed the paints and water to move freely. She uses pen and ink to sketch followed by watercolour washes while en plein air.
She next experimented with the vibrancy and unpredictability of alcohol inks on yupo paper and prepared canvas, creating stunning floral paintings and greeting cards. Alcohol ink painting is a fluid art technique that uses alcohol-based inks to create vibrant, translucent images. The inks are fast-drying and can be used to create unique patterns and designs. The inks are moved by blowing with your mouth, using a straw, hair dryer, heat tools, air brush or camera lens cleaning tool. They are unpredictable and difficult to control, presenting a pleasant but frustrating challenge.
Her interest in zen tangle patterns and neurographic lines finds its way subtly into her paintings. First, she randomly drops acrylic inks onto canvas and splatters on isopropyl alcohol using fluid art techniques. Once dry and using negative painting, she carves out the floral patterns that she sees, much like a Rorschach inkblot test. Then, using zen tangle patterns and graphic lines, she unites the various components with dip pens and acrylic inks, acrylic paint markers and gel pens.
When she saw Shelee Carruthers and Rinske Douna demonstrate the bloom and dutch pour techniques, respectively, she was hooked. This fluid art form called acrylic pouring results in such expressive artwork that cannot be duplicated by brush alone. The beautiful backgrounds created by pours can also be enhanced with traditional artwork.
She enjoys using gel plates to create unique landscape monoprints by either painting directly on the plate with brushes or by using brayers, masks & stencils to create stand alone abstract monoprints.
She is inspired by the juxtaposition of the manmade work and nature. She has a BA (Honours) in rural and urban geography in which she studied the impact of man on the natural work. This fascination is found in her artwork, whether it’s a three-masted schooner in the raging sea, a small settler’s home alone in the night sky under the northern lights, or flowers restrained by a trellis or vase. Days were spent outside and as a child you knew it was time to go home when the street lights came on. Summers were at beaches, cottages or camps. This outdoor influence is found in her landscape paintings.
Elvi is the treasurer of the Art Guild of Scarborough and secretary of the Beach Guild of Fine Art. She started the plein art group at the Beach Guild and hopes to establish a plein air schedule for TAGS for this summer.
If you would like more information about a painting or the artist contact the artist directly through their contact information on this page or complete the form on the Contact Us page.
Copyright notice: The copyright for these artworks resides with the artist. It is illegal for these images to be reproduced in any way or by any means, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the artist.