Winding down at the end of the day, I made the mistake of trawling YouTube and the various videos offering advice for oil painters. Oh Lor' ..... many of the advice/tutorials come from the USA: some are perfectly good; some are hopelessly misleading. The Bob Ross school (of course) offers the very worst advice out there. However, it's not always possible to tell a Bob Ross instructor (hiss and, indeed, spit) from a reasonably proficient tutor. Well, lucky you - here's where I come in. If your tutor tells you - usually in broad southern accents - to mix your darks with Ivory Black and Vandyke Brown, perhaps with a touch of Alizarin Crimson, do not be seduced by his warm tones: listen to the video if you wish, but just look at the painting he produces. Do you want to paint like that? No, of course you don't. Just as you wouldn't, if you had any sense, pay the least attention to an entirely British watercolour tutor who advises you that the best way to achieve darks is to add two thirds Payne's Grey to any colour you wish to darken: you wouldn't, would you? Well, I hope you wouldn't. There is quite fantastically bad advice out there for the unsuspecting painter, in oil or watercolour but, it seems, especially in oil. That's perhaps because money is to be made in flogging oil paint as opposed to watercolour or acrylic. I've been horrified by the sheer rubbish I've seen online, especially on YouTube: a lot of it comes from the USA (look out for a painter who advises you to change your colour or apply your paint "raaaght quick": he may mean well: but he doesn't paint well). Not everything you'll find online is misleading rubbish, but an awful lot of it is. Discriminate - don't take everything you find as being true or helpful. Look at the finished results of the painters who offer advice: some of them are very seductive, even soporific - they're wonderful at sending you to sleep, and if you're having problems with insomnia, play their videos before bed. But don't, whatever you do, take a word of advice - that's, note, NOT A WORD - from painters whose work is dull, undifferentiated, lacking all colour or contrast, and incidentally badly drawn, just because they're on YouTube and they sound appealing. You wouldn't, you say? Well done! But a hell of a lot of people do. If they didn't, this junk wouldn't stay online.