"After spending a little time at Claude O. Markoe Elementary School, and realising that it had quite a significant issue with litter on campus, especially single use plastics, I decided to put together a quick one day mural that would be easy for the students to relate to.

A very direct message with the central character nealing down on a pile of trash, with its hands covering the eyes, kind of blissfully ignoring its surroundings, and the impacts of where that trash ends up once we are finished with it.

The design is kind of a direct interpretation for me, drawing on the inspiration from the school. With the bubbling personality's of the students as soon as I started to paint, you could feel the love from all these awesome kids. I started to draw a red heart on the character and the phrase “Protect What You Love", as I explained to the kids the idea behind the mural, and what would happen to all the trash if we didn't look after it. Like ending up in our oceans.

As soon as the red paint went onto the wall the students wanted to get involved with the mural. This wasn't planned from the start but I thought it would be a perfect way for the kids to take ownership by putting their own hearts on the wall in a display of caring for the story behind the artwork.” - Cracked Ink

PC: Yoshi Travels (Japan)