'Gevonden Voorwerpen' (Tina #4, 2006).
Johan Westerhoff is a Dutch commercial illustrator, cartoonist and portrait artist from Groningen. As an illustrator, he is particularly known for his coloring pictures and his artwork related to the annual Dutch Sinterklaas festivities. Between 2002 and 2006, he illustrated short one-shot comic stories for the girls' magazine Tina.
Sinterklaas coloring picture.
Early life and work
Johan C. Westerhoff was born in 1972 in the northern city of Groningen. While he didn't come from a family of artists, his grandfather had a talent for drawing, and his creative uncle worked as a decorator. An avid comic reader from early childhood, he grew particularly fond of the Dutch Disney weekly Donald Duck and the 'Suske en Wiske' comics by Willy Vandersteen. Later on, several other comic series followed, including Robert van der Kroft's 'Sjors & Sjimmie', Thom Roep and Piet Wijn's 'Douwe Dabbert' and Peyo's 'The Smurfs', to name a few. Already at primary school, he held lectures about comics, while entertaining his friends and relatives with his own homemade comic books.
From age eleven through thirteen, Westerhoff created a comic strip called 'Frits, Frats en Frummel' for the Blikspuit children's page of the regional newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden. In secondary school, he also drew for the school newspaper. During his training at the Pedagogical Academy for Primary Education (PABO), he was also the regular artist for his faculty newspaper, De Pabode. He graduated with the thesis 'Disney at primary schools'. Between 1996 and 1999, Westerhoff worked as a primary school teacher, and since 2008, he is also involved with the youth welfare organization JB Noord. Starting in August 1996, he has been for hire as a freelance cartoonist, illustrator and comic artist. As a draughtsman, he is mostly inspired by Walt Disney and Marten Toonder, although some of his comics show influences from Robert van der Kroft and Willy Vandersteen.
'Een hippe klassieker' (Tina #47, 2003).
Cartoonist and illustrator
In his professional life, Westerhoff has given cartooning workshops at schools, libraries and community centers. During the 1990s, he was also involved in the early development stages of the Netherlands Comic Strip Museum in Groningen, which was eventually opened to the public from 2004 to 2019. As a commercial artist, Westerhoff has been working for corporations, the mainstream press and individual clients. He switches easily between several styles, from cartoony to stylized.
'De Familie Combuis' (@Cetera #4).
Between 2002 and 2006, Westerhoff illustrated six stand-alone comic stories from three to six pages for the girls' magazine Tina, working from scripts by Frank Jonker or Anne-Rose Hermer. For the local newspaper of Groningen's Korrewegwijk district, he created the monthly comic strip 'Truus en Trea', about two neighbors. His comic 'De Familie Combuis' appeared in the staff magazine of power company Essent.
'Truus en Thea'.
With fellow Groningen artist Frans Le Roux, Westerhoff has made illustrations for a hairdressers' training, as well as drawings for a Children's Book Week newspaper. Other work-for-hire has included birth and wedding cards, posters for Essent, designing the bird mascot Tiko for UMCG childcare, coloring pictures for Videovansint and other artwork related to the annual Sinterklaas festivities. Over the years, he has specialized in creating coloring pictures. Besides Sinterklaas, his drawings have included bunnies, bears, dogs and other funny animals in different locations, such as the beach, a playground, alpine meadows, a camping site and the funfair.
Coloring picture by Johan Westerhoff.