for SO

/// The main XNA Draw method

        protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
        {
            //GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Green);
            GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null);
            GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Green);
            // TODO: Add your drawing code here

            //COLE: comment either of the areas out to not draw one or the other.
            // The flow of Draw() goes Draw > UpdateSurface >  then finishes Draw.
            // A few things in there are commented out, for your convenience, they just drew strings

            //draw the message area.
            messageArea.Draw();
            //draw the testArea
            testArea.Draw();

            //GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Green);

            //draw the gui.
            //Orchid.DrawGUI(masterGuiElementList, gameTime);


            base.Draw(gameTime);
        }

////THe MessageArea draw code


        public override void Draw()
        {
            //draw border
            //base.Draw();

            //updates the messagearea surface, with the correct SetRenderTarget value
            //because you need to begin the spritebatch AFTER you've set the RT to what you want
            UpdateSurface();

            //draws the new surface stuff to the back buffer
            //spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.NonPremultiplied);
            spriteBatch.Begin();
            spriteBatch.Draw(this.surface, this.rect, this.backgroundColor);
            spriteBatch.End();

        }

        public override void UpdateSurface()
        {

            //change the renderTarger (pygame surface)
            graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(this.surface);
            //clear it, like normal
            graphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Thistle);

            //updates the int[] for the indexes of the messages to draw
            //UpdateActiveMessages();

            //draw messages on surface
            //DrawMessages();

            //then reset the drawing surface to null, backbuffer.
            graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null);

            //graphicsDevice.Clear(gameBG);

            //return surface;
        }