Hi! I'm Marieke Louwen van Rossum!

Hi! My name is Marieke Louwen van Rossum (Malovaro) and I was born and raised in Gouda, The Netherlands (yes, known for the cheese!) After high school I moved to Utrecht to study 1 year of photography and then got my Bachelor degree as a Creative Art therapist. Currently I live in the beautiful city of Bolzano, Italy with my husband.

With no job and a lot of time on my hands during the strict lockdown in 2020 I rediscovered my love for illustration. Since then I’ve been drawing every day! I’ve followed courses by Domestika and Make art that sells to work on my skills and style.

The things I get most of my inspiration from are nature, observing people and the imagination of children. I’ve been a babysitter since I was 12 and I’ve worked in childcare for 11 years. During those years I’ve read hundreds of books to children and know from experience how important children’s books and the stories they tell are.

I make my sketches on paper and work on the final drawings in Procreate.

Now I’m at the point of sending my work out there for everyone to see and I would love to find representation and make doing what I love into my job!