For me, snorkling in Hawaii with sea turtles is like yoga times 10—the most relaxing thing ever. Submerged under water, you leave the world behind and encounter these lovely, peaceful creatures. What a shame that trash left by careless humans can kill them. My inspiration for the turtle design was the famous Vietnam War-era poster “War is not healthy for children and other living creatures.” Created in Photoshop, the ocean is a gradient blue, the seaweed are spirals I made in colors sampled from the turtle, and the turtle is a graphic I created based on a photo. I hand wrote the text in crayon and scanned it, then placed it. This design was used in a textbook published by McGraw-Hill. Variations of the design is sold on posters, t-shirts, buttons and other merchandise sold in my Zazzle store. I was inspired to create this art because my uncle, a retired high school biology teacher, lives in Seal Beach, CA, and served on the board of Algalita, a non-profit dedicated to research and education about how plastic pollution harms marine life. He taught me a lot about plastic pollution. I'm happy to report that California recently passed a law against single-use bags in large grocery stores.
