Don Stone was born March 27, 1929, in Council Bluffs, IA, to Hester Bell and Arthur Dimick Stone. After graduating from Gloucester High School and Vesper George School Of Art, he was drafted into the Navy, where he served as a Gunnery Yeoman on a destroyer. While there, he painted portraits of the ship's officers. His painting of the ship in battle hung in the officer's quarters. After the Navy, he returned to teach at Vesper George and the New England School of Art, and he was a commercial artist and cartoonist at the Boston Post and the Lowell Sun.

In the early 1950s, he realized that he wanted to be a fine artist. In 1954, he was invited by fellow artist Paul Strisik to go on a painting trip to Monhegan Island, ME. He fell in love with the island and spent the rest of his life painting this beautiful place and the people who lived there. For 40 years he conducted painting workshops on Monhegan, which were enormously popular because of his remarkable knowledge of painting and his unique sense of humor. He considered Monhegan his true home.

Don was elected to full membership in the National Academy of Design, American Watercolor Society (Dolphin Fellow), American Society of Marine Artists (Fellow), Salmagundi Club (Honorary Member), and New England Watercolor Society (Lifetime Honorary Member). In addition, he was a member of the Guild of Boston Artists, Allied Artists of America, Hudson Valley Art Association, Rockport Art Association (Lifetime Member), North Shore Art Association and others. His work was exhibited in various public museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Portland (Maine) Museum of Art and Cape Ann Museum.

He died on March 12, 2015, after a brief illness.