Product Description: Even those fortunates who have discovered M. Robert Gardner's earlier gems such as Cher Pierre and Self-Inquiry will be dazzled with the enchanting paths of craft, creative play, and wisdom which he invites us to walk with him in this beautiful book, On Trying to Paint. In prefatatory remarks he resists most of the categories one might applyy to it -- how-to, inspirational, autobiography, and so forth -- and claims that it is a book for kinsmen, and kinswomen, and friends. This is a fair claim, because it is certainly true that the fortunate reader will feel that sort of soulful connection to Gardner throughout the reading enterprise. Yet Gardner also delivers much of what we would seek in any of those bookstore categories, so it says here that the book's many truths are also seasoned with a falsehood. The truth is that it is a right fine how-to-do-it book for the reader who might seek, in painting or in other artistic play, a way of expressing himself and ennobling his days.