Conté Pastel gallery: pet portraits

Welcome to my gallery with pet portraits in conté pastel, my name is Katja Turnsek.

I’m a professional artist, drawing pastel portraits of dogs, cats and horses. The conté pastel portraits are very dynamic, reflecting your pet's most important features and characteristics. Soulful, creative, soft and lifelike is how I would describe my drawings.

All I need is your favorite quality photo and I will create a beautful drawing of your much loved pet.

I will create a drawing you will love!

There are more drawings to see after this interesting information!

Sizes and Backgrounds

My conté pastel portrait drawings are all custom and hand drawn on high quality paper in any size, always delivered with a white matt/mount. The size you order is actually the paper size, studies need some space between the paper edges and possible scenic backgrounds will be drawn from edge to edge.

Other dynamic and fancy background effects are spontaneously drawn around areas of your pet and to some edges in order to create interest and depth.

On top of the ordered size, I always leave an additional edge to attach the matt. Making sure everything is perfect for you, I will also spend allot of time creating photo compositions and mockup’s based on your wishes before I start to draw.

Once we settled on the mockup, I will start creating a special one of a kind portrait for you.

The Style of My Drawings

My pastels are drawings, created like sketches with allot of paper showing though. As you see in my gallery, some portraits are tinted with color and others are drawn with only back and white.

The portraits are usually created with very limited colors, that helps me create drama in my work. Backgrounds are usually drawn soft, which brings out the subject.

So, which paper color should you choose?

Depending on your reference photographs, coloring of your pet and your personal wishes, you can choose between three different paper colors. White paper is neutral, grey creates a cool entirety and creme-yellow achieves allot of warmth to the overall feel.

How I will draw your custom portrait all depends on your personal wishes and also on the overall feel both of us would like to achieve. With our initial contact, let me know what I can do for you!

Now when you've read about what my pastel portraits are all about...

Would you like an AMAZING portrait of your own much loved pet?

...or view some more of my creations below.

The Drawing Technique

Conté pastel portraits are actually created with hard pastel sticks and pencils, but I’m also using conté crayons for the darkest and lightest areas. Conté crayons are much like hard pastels, but are also blended with clay and graphite with the natural pigments.

I use brushes, erasers and paper towels for blending, creating textures and special effects, combining soft areas with hard edges where they are needed.

Expressive Artwork with a Wow Factor

If you love expressive art and would love to have a lifelike portrait done of your beloved pet, you will just love this! On top of that, my pastel pet portraits are quite affordable compared to my oils.

Photos of Your Furry Family Member

Email me a range of photos and let me know your requirements, I’m very much looking forward hearing from you! I always work from one main photograph, but also look at your other photos for details.

Please provide with good quality photos!

They don’t need to be photographed by a professional, however I must be able to see all important features of your pet clearly.