So I’m shamefully including the word “sexy” in the title of this post to increase search engine hits… is that a crime?

Today is collab friday again – and this is another reader suggestion! This time from my good buddy and fellow northwest-michigander Robbie Morford.

Robbie is a youth mentor working for a non-profit in Petoskey, Michigan. He enjoys outdoor activities and breakfast. Follow him on Twitter if you also enjoy those things.

Limited Edition Snowboard Print

This illustration turned out so radical I’ve decided to make it available as a print in my Etsy shop. Go get it!

Free Snowboarding Wallpaper

Bonus! I’ve made a wallpaper version of this for all your sad-looking desktops too. Take one, pass it on.

iPad, iPhone, 1280×1014, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

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Do your parties always fail?

Try putting Grouplove on at the next one. It’ll help.

Also, you may need new friends and/or personality.

PS. Never Trust a Happy Song album art is by Grouplove singer Hannah Hooper.

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Here on the northwest shores of Lake Michigan, we experience a natural phenomenon known as “lake effect.” We’re perfectly positioned in climate and landscape to enjoy hundreds of inches of snow every year. Most years the snow starts falling around Thanksgiving and continues each day until after Christmas. The newness of winter and the pure white blanket that covers everything is always an inspiring change. I don’t think I could ever live in a place that has no winter.

But as we turn the corner into February, each of the slowly falling flakes brings with it a tiny dose of depression.

When weeks and months pass without any sunshine, our bodies and minds enter a kind of hibernation that makes motivation hard to come by.

An unfortunate side-effect for those of us right-brained northerners is some pretty severe creative block.

While I can find ways to manage the seasonal sadness and lethargy—even if sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other—conjuring up creative sparks when I’m surrounded by gray can be quite a challenge.

I sit down at my computer or with a sketch pad or notebook and stare—my eyes perpetually glazed over like two donut holes peeking out from my skull, and brainstorming is little more than a prolonged “uhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Any hint of ideas are like little sperm that just don’t have what it takes for conception as they are sparingly trapped in the net of cobwebs that’s currently replaced the creative sector of my mind.

What I’m reminding myself today is something I’ve been slowly learning over the past several years—that trying harder may be adding to the problem rather than solving it.

As an artist I can double the time spent in front of the canvas… slapping paint or pixels or whatever it is… but ultimately it leads to more frustration over the additional time wasted.

Many artists swear that walking away from the frustration is the most likely way to find release from the creative block. To do something or some activity or investment that is the exact opposite of what the currently reigning side of my brain is telling me to do.

Work harder! More hours! Focus!

In fact, that’s proving true not only in overcoming creative block, but in many areas of life.

When faced with frustration in work, relationships, even spirituality… either my blue-collar blood or my high sense of reason keeps telling me to fix it.

To keep my nose to the grindstone and git-er-done.

And honestly I often do need to push through pain and do the real work required of success.

But in many other instances my own efforts only amplify that cycle of defeat. I try harder in my marriage, business, projects or whatever… and it just creates more complicated problems, additional frustration and ultimately depression.

When what I might actually need is a break.

To do one thing that seems completely counterproductive to the issue at hand.

Go skiing, take a road trip, even just walk the dog when I’m facing deadlines.

Go on a date with my wife when we’re in financial crisis.

Play hooky with my daughter when she’s struggling in school.

Watch an entire movie without cell phones, iPads or laptops.

Take a vacation when my business is in chaos.

Attend church when there’s a million other things to do.

Spend even just 10 minutes in quiet.

How to Beat Creative Block

So creative folks, what do you do when facing creative block? What has worked for you and what hasn’t?

One of my efforts to stay ahead of the slumps this year is collaborating with readers and other artists just-for-fun every friday. Check out the past few weeks! 

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For Collaboration Friday today  I got a handful of totally random vector shapes from Minneapolis designer (and Old & New contributor) Anne Ulku.

I saw a snail and some tee-pees and a bird face so there you go.

Want to do a fun collaboration next Friday? Follow me on Twitter so we can make something rad.

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Illustration by Troy DeShano

This year new music sharing will alternate with music-based illustration.

My 9-yr-old daughter has really been into The Beatles lately, and on the rare occasion that she takes a break from The Muppets soundtrack you’ll hear the Fab Four ringing from her iPod.

I thought it was pretty cool the other day when she had a friend sleepover and I could hear “Love Me Do” coming from her room and wondered how many sleepovers over the past 50 years have had that song in the background.

So in honor of her and her always classy tastes, here’s the first in what will hopefully be many Beatles-inspired illustrations from our house.

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Illustration by Troy DeShano

It’s Collab Friday!!

This week’s illustration is a reader suggestion… and for some reason this week everyone was suggesting super-weird and specific things (like I’m that weird??)

Everything from three-headed-kitten-mermaids to stilted tortoises…

When two different people happened to mention pie I knew we were on to something though…

@sacredlotus suggested bunnies eating pie and Matt suggested Cake vs. Pie…

So I decided to draw Cake vs. Pie in a bunny-eating contest.

Still kind of weird for me, but that’s the fun of collaborating, right?

What should I draw next time?

Bunny Eating Contest Wallpaper

Get this delicious illustration on your desktop dudes:

2560×1440, 1920×1200, 1680×1050, 1280×1024, 1020×1080

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Which is nice.

The subtle newness can be attributed on some level by the fact that it was produced  by Bon Iver and…

I suppose I don’t need to write anything else. She’s awesome.

Also. My giddiness hearing this new album was coming was cranked up a big notch when I saw the totally rad great lakes album art by Darren Booth!

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I’m lucky enough to have never suffered from chronic depression.

But it does sneak up on me from time to time.

Every once in a while I’d just as soon stay in bed and am lucky that my office is a mere 3 feet away or I’d never make it.

Today is one of those days.

For the most part my depression revolves around my hormones. This week for example, I just so happened to forget the shot of testosterone that my body needs to stay “balanced.”

whoops…

Nothing to panic about, but all-of-a-sudden I’m really tired and the next thing you know I’m sitting here alone without even the gumption to put on some sad music.

I remember a time when I didn’t really believe in depression as a clinical diagnosis. It’s relatively common and unforunate for religious folks to catch one of those reading-between-the-lines teachings like “depression is in most cases a primarily spiritual problem.”

It’s the kind of thing that preachers don’t usually say in explicit terms, but often subtly and inadvertently imply that it’s a lack of faith or understanding that’s left you in a lurch and prescriptions or therapy may be just a band-aid.

Obviously I don’t disregard spiritual health as a factor in mental or physical health, but in my experience the way in which the church commonly approaches such things in a reductionary manner leaves many of the sufferers with (at best) a load of guilt and (at worst) an unresolved chronic problem with a variety of biological and social components.  [Note: that is a long post for another day]

But even outside of overtly religious subcultures I imagine that like most things, we all doubt its existence until we experience it ourselves.

The hardest part for me is the frustrating paralyzation.

How badly I want to go outside, play with the kids, or even just stand up or speak… but I just can’t.

I’m finding it easier to embrace these moments because I’m learning how temporary it is, that a day watching movies and crying during AT&T commercials will subside by tomorrow when the testosterone kicks in and I’ll pick the butt back up where I left it and resume kicking.

For me, difficult experiences like this are where I discover compassion.

It’s rarely in the moment of suffering (either in a big or small way) that I consider others, but every single challenging circumstance or condition that I’ve endured has brought me at some point in the future face-to-face with another who is hurting in the very same way.

I rarely have advice for the sufferer—the depressed or rejected or sick or damaged—but I have a story.

And nothing matches the power of a story to encourage, challenge, inspire or in the very least bring a bit of humor when it seems like laughter is something in the distant past.. something maybe you dreamed about years ago.

For more on reductionism by both religious and secular intervention listen to Tim Keller’s podcast episode “The Wounded Spirit.”

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I’m lucky to be one of only five artists to have multiple pieces included in the Denno’s Museum Center regional artist showcase.

It was interesting to see the diverse styles represented in the show and wonderful to be among so many talented individuals who call northern Michigan “home” at the opening this past weekend.

Around 100 artists are represented in the 100-or-so works on display (selected from over 450 submissions) at the museum center through March. Prizes were awarded this weekend at the artist reception in a “best-in-show” kind of fashion and it was no surprise that (as seems to be the typical verdict in juried shows like this) the larger sized your artwork, the more likely it’ll be selected as a “winner.”

Personally my favorite piece in the exhibit (by far) is this understated and modest portrait titled Ann by Dan Oberschulte. (Sorry for the blurry photo) Among the smaller pieces in the show it wasn’t selected as a winning piece or even an honorable mention, but I agreed with several other artists who attended the opening that this portrait stood out from the pack.

My illustrated prints EAT and Smoking the Gun are included in the exhibit. Both are hanging in custom hand-made frames built from reclaimed lumber and are a part of my ongoing Across the U.P. illustration series (that I’m committing to finish this winter).

Each of these prints are priced to sell in my shop, contact me if you’re interested in framing.

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Earlier this week I threw a “who wants to collaborate today” on Twitter and the first to respond was Lori Andrews (aka @designertweets) so I told her to send me a photo and I’d do something fun with it.

Having watched Lori’s work for a while I totally expected one of her Albertan landscape polaroids, but she totally threw me for a loop with this shot of Wonder Woman on her day off..

I immediately thought of those 1980s READ posters that you’d see at the library.

More Collaboration

This is the first of a brand new project category for Strong Odors – every Friday will feature a collaborative project. It will either be an Odorifous interview, a spontaneous collaboration like this, or a reader suggested illustration.

So for next Friday I need your help!

Leave a comment below  or on my Facebook page what I should draw and I’ll pick my favorite to publish next Friday (January 20).

Who knows, your idea may even end up as a limited edition print!

Want to Collaborate?

Are you an illustrator, photographer, artist, designer, etc? Let’s do something fun together! Email me with an idea or a random image.

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