In living watercolor

Captain's feed tray served as a platform for my supplies.

On Sunday, I painted with toothpicks and cotton swabs. After a productive week of printing, I decided to try a little something that I haven't done before: apply watercolor to letterpress. After printing the Cold Moon Press tagline page, I noticed a little something that continued to bother me. I was really excited when I found a candlestick among my printing dingbats to use as a decorative initial "I." It looked great in among the set type, but when printed there was one feature of the candlestick dingbat that made it slightly... confusing when trying to read. That little fingerhold at the bottom right looks just like a letter "O," and I found myself reading "On the light of a winter's night..." That's a problem. Not a big one, but from a design perspective, that little confusion gets in the way of the overall idea/image you are trying to present: clarity is the objective. But I love that little dingbat: it captures the atmosphere of the text it precedes perfectly. I wasn't willing to give it up. So I brainstormed for possible solutions, and this seemed like a good one. I wanted some visual element that tied that problematic fingerhold to the greater candlestick image, so it didn't appear as a separate letter overlapping the image. And I had a bit of fun along the way.

Successful experiment?