We’ve all heard the expression ‘Art often imitates life’, how about when art takes on a life of it’s own? Such is the work of American pencil artist Iain Stone.
After leaving art school Stone worked as professional guitar maker, for several well know acoustic guitar companies, before taking a job with Apple support and later moving to Montana to assume responsibility of a family property and starting a family of his own for a brief time, Stone has since moved back to Oregon to return to work in the music industry at Breedlove guitars.
Through his various times of change Stone produced artwork of celebrity musicians to display his abilities, and then on to taking commissions and expanding his portfolio.
Now he has launched his own website where you can not only browse through a collection of his work, but order prints as well.
While Stone does create his images from photographs, it is not just reproduction of what he sees. Often he will select and highlight details to bring out the best of the image without sacrificing or altering the original image.
Not to be mistaken with him taking ‘artistic licence’, rather a selective process (that was developed through experience) to bring out the best in the image by either editing or omitting minor details which may take away from the final image.
Computer reproductions, modification and scans have become so commonplace that photo realistic images are always assumed to be the result of a computer.
With Stone’s work this is not the case at all.
All of his work is one man, with a pencil and eraser sitting down with a blank board and creating the image by hand, each piece at a time.
No digital touch ups, no photographic tricks, no short cuts just the incredible ability to produce work which has life, depth and character that only a small group of extremely skilled artists are able to do.
All prints are available to be ordered for $20.00 USD (plus shipping) through his website www.iainstone.com.
Also on his site is his contact information should you wish to commission a piece of artwork from him. Original work starts at $200.00 USD and goes up depending on what you are ordering.Pieces are done on 11″x14″ Bristol board, but the artist does advertise that he is willing to make an exception should the client request it.
Through the ‘How much do they cost’ section of his site, Stone has provided examples of the photograph he was sent and his finished work to compare side by side. This is so prospective clients are able to see what to expect of any photograph they wish to have drawn by him.
To keep up with what the artist is doing you can follow, and like, Iain Stone on Facebook:
Below are four of Stone’s personal favourite images, but with so many choose from you may agree or disagree when you visit his site.
Again, the artist’s website address is: www.iainstone.com
John Goodale is the author of the book ‘Johnny Gora’ (available through Amazon) as well as the monthly TMRZoo.com column ‘Indy Comic Spotlight’ and other articles on this site.
