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Sometimes an idea doesn’t come in a flash. In this case it took years. It can happen to you, too. You just have to be patient.

November 20, 2013

The Long and Winding Road

November 20, 2013/ John Derry

I took this shot of Chicago's North Shore Drive from the top of Hancock Tower. A few minutes earlier, I took the photo I used as the source for my earlier Windy City illustration.

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ABOUT

Since 1985, I have utilized my background in drawing and painting to advance the look and experience of traditional art-making tools on the computer.

As one of the original authors of Corel Painter® and creator of the Mixer Brush natural-media libraries found in Adobe Photoshop® since CS5, my expressive brushes are in world-wide use by millions of digital artists.

I am an author of 28 Digital Painting learning titles for Linkedin Learning / lynda.com.

You can visit my lynda.com tutorial page by clicking on my name below:

John Derry lynda author

December 2021
- Dec 23, 2021 New Expressive Collage Class on Skillshare
August 2021
- Aug 6, 2021 Today is Painter’s 30th birthday!
January 2021
- Jan 22, 2021 Emergence User: Artist Lois Bryan
October 2020
- Oct 9, 2020 Creating "The View from Highway 69" with Emergence for Painter 2021
September 2020
- Sep 23, 2020 In Memoriam
- Sep 10, 2020 Emergence 2021 Released and Available for Purchase
November 2019
- Nov 13, 2019 New Work...it’s gonna be a series!
October 2019
- Oct 24, 2019 Emergence painting demo on Paintboxtv this November 19th
- Oct 15, 2019 Interesting new creativity series: Artistic Journeys
- Oct 9, 2019 New Artwork Using Emergence
July 2019
- Jul 14, 2019 Emergence 1.1 for Corel Painter Released
- Jul 8, 2019 Emergence Update for Painter 20/20 Due Out this Friday
April 2019
- Apr 5, 2019 Emergence User: Michael Cetta
- Apr 2, 2019 Emergence User: Linda Griffiths
March 2019
- Mar 26, 2019 Emergence User: Richard Okun
- Mar 24, 2019 Emergence User: Sabrina L. Greene
- Mar 19, 2019 Emergence User: Karen Bonaker
- Mar 18, 2019 Emergence User: Kari Nanstad
- Mar 17, 2019 Upgrade policy for Emergence
- Mar 15, 2019 Brushstrokes Reimagined: Emergence is now available!
February 2019
- Feb 21, 2019 Emergence High Resolution Demo
- Feb 14, 2019 A Short Demo of Emergence
- Feb 2, 2019 An Early Influence Reverberates Today
January 2019
- Jan 25, 2019 Emergence is Coming!
- Jan 21, 2019 A 25 Year Quest is Rewarded
- Jan 2, 2019 A Preview of My Upcoming Painter Brushes
December 2018
- Dec 21, 2018 Happy Holidays from the PixlBlog!
- Dec 11, 2018 Color Wheel Keeps on Turnin'
November 2018
- Nov 15, 2018 I Wish it Was Spring
- Nov 9, 2018 Now...Where was I?
March 2018
- Mar 30, 2018 Artists, we're living in the Future
February 2018
- Feb 27, 2018 A Glimpse into the FUTURE of Digital Painting
May 2014
- May 12, 2014 Ominous Clouds before the Storm
December 2013
- Dec 21, 2013 New Painting App Sketchable: All in the Family
- Dec 19, 2013 Waterlogue App Advances Digital Watercolor Ease-of-Creation
November 2013
- Nov 22, 2013 Between Flights
- Nov 20, 2013 The Long and Winding Road
- Nov 19, 2013 A Recent Photographic Interpretation
- Nov 18, 2013 Everything Old is New Again
- Nov 16, 2013 Windy City Perspective
- Nov 15, 2013 The Ride Home
August 2013
- Aug 6, 2013 If Walls Could Talk
March 2013
- Mar 17, 2013 Up and Down
- Mar 1, 2013 View from the San Andreas Fault
February 2013
- Feb 27, 2013 Morro Bay Reflections
- Feb 26, 2013 Monarch Clusters at Pismo Beach
- Feb 25, 2013 Accidental Art Amidst the Oilfields
- Feb 22, 2013 Santa Barbara Spiral
December 2012
- Dec 30, 2012 John's Impasto User: Janet Stoppee
November 2012
- Nov 28, 2012 Elias Mina: John's Impasto & Smart Brushes User
September 2012
- Sep 3, 2012 John's Artists' Brushes User: Roland Saldivar
August 2012
- Aug 23, 2012 Moku Hanga: Outstanding Japanese Woodblock Print App
- Aug 4, 2012 John's Dry Media User: Thomas Brissot
June 2012
- Jun 25, 2012 Don't Adjust Your Display!
- Jun 21, 2012 John's Smart Brushes User: Terry Sita
- Jun 19, 2012 Seeing from a Different P.O.V.
May 2012
- May 21, 2012 John's Smart Brushes User: Karen Bonaker
February 2012
- Feb 24, 2012 The Last Draughtsman: Robert A. Nelson
January 2012
- Jan 25, 2012 Mark Zimmer: The Relativistic Observer
- Jan 19, 2012 John Derry featured on Photoshop.com
November 2011
- Nov 25, 2011 Arched Oak
October 2011
- Oct 10, 2011 Stumbling into History
- Oct 6, 2011 Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
September 2011
- Sep 11, 2011 Imagine
August 2011
- Aug 26, 2011 California Street on Nob Hill
- Aug 26, 2011 Just Steve.
- Aug 24, 2011 Spiral Stairs at San Francisco's Embarcadero Center
- Aug 16, 2011 Michael Tegland Artworks
June 2011
- Jun 20, 2011 End of Spring Storm Rolls Through Omaha
March 2011
- Mar 31, 2011 John's Brushes User: David Muldoon
- Mar 19, 2011 Swiss Artist's Knife
- Mar 17, 2011 How Does That LCD Display You Spend Hours Staring At Actually Work?
- Mar 16, 2011 Is Display Glass in our Future? Corning Thinks So.
- Mar 10, 2011 Zhangjiajie in Snow—Awesome
February 2011
- Feb 15, 2011 John's Artists' Brushes & Dry Media User: David Reid
- Feb 7, 2011 Architectural Decay in HDR
December 2010
- Dec 3, 2010 John's Watercolors User: Kenneth Broström
October 2010
- Oct 15, 2010 Karen Bonaker: Artists' Brushes Paintings
September 2010
- Sep 26, 2010 Two Seasons, Two Tools
- Sep 26, 2010 John's Dry Media User: Karen Bonaker
- Sep 23, 2010 John's Dry Media User: Heather Adams
- Sep 19, 2010 John's Dry Media User: Susan Bloom
August 2010
- Aug 26, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Lars Bjørstrup
- Aug 17, 2010 Dealing with Pixel Density and Brush Performance
- Aug 5, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Anastasiy Safari
June 2010
- Jun 28, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Terry Whitener
- Jun 13, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Stephen Buchmann
- Jun 11, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Dominic Orologio
- Jun 8, 2010 John's Artists' Brush User: J. H. Gaspar
- Jun 2, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: David Reid
May 2010
- May 30, 2010 John's Artists' Brush User: Judi Bailey
- May 29, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Claudia Pendlay
- May 24, 2010 John's Artists' Brush User: Karen Bonaker
- May 21, 2010 Russell Brown: Renaissance Man
- May 19, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes User: Janet Stoppee
- May 19, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes for Photoshop CS5 Now Available!
- May 10, 2010 John's Artist's Brushes for Photoshop CS5 Preview: 48 Presets
- May 8, 2010 John's Artists' Brushes for Photoshop CS5: Sample Painting
- May 5, 2010 Photoshop CS5: John's Artists' Brushes Deliver the Goods
April 2010
- Apr 27, 2010 William Low: Traditional Illustrator Goes Digital
- Apr 14, 2010 John's Watercolor User: Kevin Parnell
- Apr 9, 2010 Attack of the Pixels!
- Apr 4, 2010 Nature by the Numbers
February 2010
- Feb 22, 2010 John's Watercolor User: Kathy Pilgrim
- Feb 18, 2010 Happy 20th Birthday, Photoshop!
- Feb 10, 2010 Painter Brushmaster David Gell: Jitter Brush
- Feb 8, 2010 Paulo Brabo: The Braboblog
January 2010
- Jan 20, 2010 John's Watercolors User: Barb Hartsook
- Jan 16, 2010 Painter Brush Checklist for Non-painting Layers
- Jan 16, 2010 John's Watercolors User: Jan Coffman
- Jan 3, 2010 John's Watercolor User Redux: Joan Hamilton
December 2009
- Dec 24, 2009 A Question of (Gray) Balance
November 2009
- Nov 9, 2009 Hilarious Cartoons Featuring Corel Painter
- Nov 2, 2009 It's Official...
October 2009
- Oct 30, 2009 John's Watercolor User: Athos Boncompagni
September 2009
- Sep 28, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Pauline Black
- Sep 25, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Giovanna Gazzolo
- Sep 23, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Joan Hamilton
- Sep 21, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Sam Gaylord
- Sep 18, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Victor Lunn Rockcliffe
- Sep 9, 2009 John's Watercolors User: Mitch Bell
- Sep 6, 2009 Chicago in the Round
- Sep 3, 2009 John's Corel Painter Watercolor Brushes Now Compatible with Painter 2017!
June 2009
- Jun 20, 2009 Recent Gouache Interpretation
April 2009
- Apr 28, 2009 The Ingredients of Visual Expression
February 2009
- Feb 21, 2009 Digital Tools, Analog Art
January 2009
- Jan 8, 2009 Colorizing a Memory
December 2008
- Dec 4, 2008 But Is It "Art"?
October 2008
- Oct 31, 2008 Portrait Enhancement
- Oct 24, 2008 100 Days
July 2008
- Jul 12, 2008 The Gift of Life
April 2008
- Apr 13, 2008 Life Happens
February 2008
- Feb 25, 2008 Why I've Been AWOL
October 2007
- Oct 5, 2007 New Work...Finally!
- Oct 3, 2007 On the Shoulders of Giants
May 2007
- May 26, 2007 Pixels and Pigments
March 2007
- Mar 7, 2007 Smart Strokes and the Drawing-Challenged
February 2007
- Feb 19, 2007 In Search of Personal Style
- Feb 1, 2007 Cameras Without Film
January 2007
- Jan 22, 2007 The Genie is Out of the Bottle
- Jan 12, 2007 Layer Blending Modes Demystified