Pussy Willow Branch - colored pencil and pen and ink

In Eastern Rite churches, pussy willow branches are typically blessed and distributed with palm branches on Palm Sunday.

The pussy willow branch is both strong and woody, but with very delicate, fluffy blossoms. I first did this drawing in graphite pencil. Then I decided to do the line work in pen and ink, erase the pencil, and add some color with colored pencil. The branch has a bit more reddish in it than came through in this rendering, and the blossoms are quite silvery/white in the highlights.

I enjoyed the view of this particular branch as two of the blossoms still had the papery brown covering on the back, and one blossom at the bottom had fallen off, leaving a few wispy bits on the branch.