The original idea for using a container object came from Malcolm Greene, then the actual coded example of doing it came from Bo Durban. It's a good technique and one that I have used countless times in my GDI+ articles. There are a few things that make it good. For one there is a bug when using the Form's picture property that causes a clipping region (for lack of a better way of describing it) that does not allow you to change the size of the off-screen bitmap on the fly. Also a container can be placed inside other container-type objects such as pages, grids, and other containers. Finally, techniques to draw around the controls on the form work ok, but they also have a problem when the controls overlap. So, to make a long story short, the container object is the best at the moment and this example code from Bo does a decent job of show the basics involved. There is more to it in more complex operations, but for a simple gradient background, this type of code works great.

>>>Hi Kevin,
>>>
>>>Here's some cool code to make a form background's into a gradient. Try resizing the form. I think I had found this code here on the UT. All credit belongs to the original author whose name I cannot remember. It could be Craig Boyd's since it has something to do with GDI+ :)
>>>
>>That is some cool code Mike! Thanks!
>
>Don't thank me Terry. Like I said, all credit goes to the original author. Anyway, glad you found it handy. I know I did!
>
>Mike