My three and a half year old granddaughter Ruthie came to me one day recently requesting I do a painting for her.

“Nana, I want a flower picture that you painted for me” Ruthie said this with her big eyes gazing earnestly at me.

“What kind of flower do you want me to paint?” asked.

She shrugged her little shoulders and responded “I don’t know. Just flowers.” Between this exchange and the fact I had painted lilies for her sister Lilias a few month earlier I readily agreed.

Pansies are my favorite flowers. They look like expressive faces in flower form and come in so many colors. I immediately decided pansies would be perfect. Pansies while beautiful and delicate are so bold and resilient and reminded me of Ruthie. As a little one she was tiny and frail looking and needed oxygen and feeding tube but in the last year she has been thriving without either.

I began drawing and painting pansies and below is the final result of pansies for Ruthie.