Hand-Colored Bird print

Fans of Jones's work will recognize this as one of the pen and ink drawings included in the 1973 Goblin Graphix portfolio (six prints of absolutely delicious pen and ink genius). This version was hand colored to be used as the cover to Gates of Eden #2 from FantaCo in 1982. The book was solicited and advertised, but never released. The second image shows an advertisement for the book with this piece as the cover.

As seems to always be the case, the coloring enhances the beauty, depth, dimension and sense of movement in the art. While hand-colored pieces are justifiably not considered to be as important as completely original artworks, in many cases they provide further insight and context for the artists perspective and vision, as is the case here. Ink wash, 11 x 17 on heavy paper.