Students in Mars Area High School’s Advanced Art classes spent the last few weeks adorning the exterior walls of the school’s inner courtyard with “paste-up art.”

The project, inspired by Brooklyn-based street artist Swoon, asked the students to sketch and paint native plants and flowers on large sheets of paper. Then, using wheat paste peppered with the seeds of various plants native to Pennsylvania such as ironweed and wild clematis, the students then transferred the artworks onto the brick walls of the courtyard.

As the temporary artworks begin to fall, peel and degrade, the seeds could germinate and add to the environmental science garden of native plants that is thriving in the courtyard, says Erin Sloane, art teacher, noting that the project was meant to be an “ice-breaker activity’ for the young artists.

“Most of us are not use to working with something on such a big scale,” says Lyra Whitcroft, senior. “We enjoyed being taken out of our comfort zone.”

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