Juan Ramón Alonso Díaz-Toledo was born in Madrid in 1951. He got a degree in Fine Arts from San Fernando Academy in Madrid. He started soon to work as an illustrator in joint projects while he taught Drawing and Shape Analysis. In 1980 he published his first book as an illustrator in Austral Juvenil series and since then he has been realizing illustration works for both Spanish and international publishing houses.
His drawings range from picture books to books for adults, Press, etc. “I keep to the texts, I think it would be haughty not to adjust your drawings to the text, since working as an illustrator is just that, sometimes, as I said before, it takes hard work, when the story or the character, or the text itself I am working on is far away from me, but I believe that you must keep to the text”.
His work as an illustrator, awarded with several prizes, is characterized by the use of combined techniques of watercolor and color pencils.
Stories about children who are marked, most of the times, by negative conditions created by adults. In Half a smile, with six short stories, children show us their life at school, in their neighbourhoods, with their families… from a tender point of view, full of solidarity with the weakest ones, with those who are victims.
“It is, because of its plot, a life book, a brave, reflective, suggestive book. This is undoubtedly helped by the organization of the different elements and by the narrative skill” (Alfonso García in Diario de León).