Eva Eland is an author, illustrator and artist living in Amsterdam with her husband Mauri and their two children, Livia and Samuel.
Eva is best known for her picture books about emotions, When Sadness Comes to Call and Where Happiness Begins, which have been translated into more than 20 languages and have been nominated, shortlisted and won several awards. Eva’s third picture book with Andersen Press will be released in the summer of 2024. She is currently working on a fourth.

Eva studied Image & Language at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. After an exchange program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where she dipped her toes into animation and film, she decided to continue her studies at the Rietveld Academy in the Audiovisual Design department, where she graduated in 2008.
After graduation, it took her a while to figure out what she wanted to do with all the writing and drawing that always remained a common thread in her creative work. After a while, she decided to enroll in the MA Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. Here she felt she had finally found her tribe (a little crazy and idealistic, but with a big heart and a passion for drawing and picture books). She loved being a student again, this time with a greater appreciation for the time she had to dedicate herself to exploring ideas and learning all there was to learn about storytelling and drawing. In 2018, she graduated cum laude.

Eva enjoys watching people and drawing from observation. She experiments with traditional materials and printmaking (particularly risography). She is also always eager to learn more about storytelling and ways to create meaningful work that resonates with others. She is fascinated by human behavior and psychology and does not shy away from difficult topics such as grief, loneliness and the creative process. In her work, she likes to address this, but often in an encouraging or humorous way. The subjects she is drawn to are often those that she herself struggles with or that are still a mystery to her.