After graduating in design at the Grafisch Lyceum in Utrecht, Sandra Bartels (1972) worked for years in advertising as a designer/desktop publisher. Capturing an animal’s personality and expression is important to her. She mainly works with softpastel & pastelpencils and panpastel, and developed her technique further over the years. Pastel allows her to perfectly create fur structures and nature by building it up in different layers to create a realistic detailed pasteldrawing.

Her works are also highly regarded internationally. In 2019 she submitted her drawings for the ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ competition organized by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (UK). These pastel works were selected to be part of the exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. In 2020 & 2021 she again became a finalist. Her work has been published in ‘International Artist Magazine’ edition April ’22 and her artwork ‘Hope’ was placed on the cover from that same edition. In 2022 she participated Stroke of a Genius 14 and became a finalist. At that same time her work is also published in Pastel Winter Journal ’23. She also participated the prestigious competition 16th Arc Salon of the Art Renewal Center, and became a finalist with her work ‘Graceful’, category Animals. In 2023 she entered the Richeson75 Animal, Birds & Wildlife contest and won 1st place with the drawing ‘Keeping an Eye’.In 2024 she became a semi-finalist in the 17th Arc du Salon and also a finalist in Stroke of a Genius 16 and in the Almenara Art price 2024. Her pastel work is published in Colored magazine – March 2025 with her pastel ‘Don’t be Shy’ on the cover.