There have been many adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen written in 1845. Most people are familiar with the basic story about a beautiful yet icy cold woman takes a young boy away to her home in the frozen north. The original story, however, has much more to it. It is written in 7 "stories" each telling of an adventure the little girl Gerda has while searching for her friend Kay, the boy who is abducted. 

  The third story tells of Gerda's adventure with an old woman who could "conjure". The old woman wants Gerda to forget about Kay and stay with her. She almost succeeds but when Gerda sees the roses it reminds her of Kay and she proceeds to have conversations with each of the flowers in the garden hoping they might know where he is. Each flower tells their story (although none of them can help find Kay). These paintings are inspired by the stories the flowers tell. They actually don't have anything to do with the main narrative of Gerda's search for Kay. Eventually I hope to illustrate the entire Snow Queen tale.

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If you would like to read The Snow Queen here is a link to an early English translation:

http://hca.gilead.org.il/snow_que.html