First ap­pear­ances can be de­ceiv­ing. When peo­ple first meet Miri­am Lit­tle, 11, she looks qui­et and re­served. Many peo­ple be­lieve that she is very shy among strangers and would talk an­i­mat­ed­ly and laugh freely on­ly among her friends and fam­i­ly. On the con­trary, Su­san Wood­ley-Lit­tle, Miri­am's moth­er said her daugh­ter was a very brave child and would not stop un­til she knows about a sub­ject.

She said she was not a timid child and was very for­ward. An­oth­er unique trait about Miri­am was that since she was small she got along very well with se­nior peo­ple and be­came friends with them from the com­mu­ni­ty, church and school cir­cles and this was re­flect­ed in her speech pat­tern as some of her phras­ings were from a much old­er gen­er­a­tion.

The Prep 5 A stu­dent from D&D Ed­u­ca­tion­al Cen­tre in St Joseph finds ex­pres­sion and trans­forms her thoughts and what she ex­pe­ri­ences through her draw­ings.

This is how Miri­am com­mu­ni­cates and ex­press­es her cre­ativ­i­ty in giv­ing vi­su­al form to her emo­tions. Art gives her the free­dom and op­por­tu­ni­ty to let peo­ple know her feel­ings through the vi­su­al medi­um.

Miri­am is giv­en free rein to ar­tic­u­late her pas­sion. She not on­ly com­mu­ni­cates her emo­tions, but al­so the time and place of an event she went to through her art, some­times bet­ter than words can con­vey.

When Miri­am goes out on day trips with her par­ents, Su­san Wood­ley-Lit­tle and Ky­rol Lit­tle, on re­turn­ing home she pulls scenes from her mem­o­ry and paints what she had ex­pe­ri­enced ear­li­er. A sam­ple of her work that she saw on an out­ing that she put to pa­per are flow­ers, ice cream, cot­ton can­dy, bal­loons, trees, rain­bows, dogs and the sky.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at her Mt Lam­bert home Miri­am said "I start­ed draw­ing when I was six, I draw any­thing with na­ture, I watch videos on Youtube to see oth­er artists like Draw­ing wiff Waf­fles and Su­per Rae Diz­zle.

"I work with wa­ter­colours and use wa­ter­colour pa­per to paint on. If I'm do­ing projects, I would use scrap­books but most­ly use wa­ter­colour pa­per.

"When I now start­ed, I used nor­mal print­er pa­per and have a few fold­ers of my work.

"My favourite sub­jects are art and sci­ence and I al­so like to swim,

right now I'm tak­ing lessons in the af­ter­noon for SEA on April 2

and my first choice is Bish­op Anstey High School East."

She said she al­so likes to read mys­tery nov­els and books like Di­ary of a Wimpy Kid, her favourite food is spaghet­ti and mince­meat and her favourite movie is Sui­cide Squad.

Miri­am said she loves an­i­mals, she has a pet dog named Phoenix and would like to be a vet­eri­nary as­sis­tant when she grows up.

Miri­am's moth­er said from a very young age when she start­ed to write, they gave her colour pen­cils and she start­ed to draw from then and they re­alised that she had a gift.

She said since then, every year Miri­am had been de­vel­op­ing and with a lit­tle more prac­tice she keeps on im­prov­ing.

Wood­ley-Lit­tle said her daugh­ter's in­spi­ra­tion and pas­sion came from vir­tu­al­ly any­thing around her and the en­vi­ron­ment.

She said she nev­er en­tered Miri­am in any com­pe­ti­tions or ex­hi­bi­tions yet, she was just pur­su­ing art as a hob­by and hope­ful­ly when she was in sec­ondary school will do so.

Wood­ley-Lit­tle said even as she pre­pares for her up­com­ing SEA, she nev­er cur­tailed her art­work.