Hold up a painting from a local craft fair next to a masterpiece. Can you tell the difference? If so, you have talent. That is one of the messages in this new book. Most people think that painting a masterpiece is enormously difficult and requires a rare genius. They are wrong. That is the other message. When someone asked Claude Monet how his paintings were done, he replied, "Well, I hope nobody ever figures out how I do it " This book tells how. Not which color to apply where, but rather it leads you to a particular frame of mind and to a process that will let your painting evolve in its own way and result in a work that is much better than what you thought you could do. There are some secrets here, but they're not hard to carry out once you know about them. Some of these secrets died with the Impressionists, but they are explained here - and they are really very simple. They deal mostly with what happens inside your head as you paint. Practical tidbits of advice that I have never seen described anywhere else.