A Bird in the Hand

I've been working on this watercolour over the last few days. I took my time because it was a commissioned piece and I wanted to follow the brief as closely as possible.

I started with a very light pencil sketch, then added colour.

 When it was completely dry, I painted some more.

Then I worked on the leaves.

The final stage was the placement of the names.

 Mission accomplished.

 
Simplicity is the removal of the useless and the unnecessary--source unknown