The worst advice on the internet?

The trouble with YouTube and similar platforms is that there's no quality control to speak of - in a way, that's one of their strengths, too - so you have to exercise your judgement.  Nowhere is this more true than of painting, and particularly oil painting.  Inevitably, the vaguely interested, the nervous beginner, the seeker after tips, will go on the net rather than buy books: because it's free; you can start and pause the videos; you can watch them at your convenience.  Will you go far wrong if you do?  Yes.  You could. This will not be another rant about Bob Ross - if you want to paint like him, there's nothing I can say to you - soul sold to the devil, another gullible grasper at what looks simple and immediate.  Or maybe, you just want to play with paint, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's more about people who have only recently learned to paint for themselves, and insist on passing their knowledge on: which so often resolves itself into a plug for Liquin and other easily-found, if expensive, products you "must have", or "need".  Liquin is all right: I have nothing against Liquin, though I could do without the smell.  Use it if you like.  But it's nonsense to say anyone needs it.  Low Odour Thinners, Sansodor, Turpentine, Zest-it, White Spirit - well the only one of those I'd say don't use is White Spirit, or at least the stuff you can buy in hardware stores.  It's hazardous (which doesn't bother me, really) and it just destroys paint (which does).  Real Turpentine is even more hazardous, but I'd use it for preference - it's rather better for the paint, because of its resinous nature. But again - you don't need any of those products, and your surroundings will smell sweeter, and you'll be healthier, if you don't use them.   But you can: of course you can; many do, but you don't HAVE to.   Stretched canvas is always recommended: well, it has its uses, but it never was an ideal surface for oil paint; and the cheap, thin cotton-duck canvases are certainly not the best.  What IS the best would take much more space to explain than I'm going to bore you with, but in short, it needs to be rigid, not flexible.  Ideally - plenty a good picture has been painted on cheap canvas, and I well understand its attraction.  But know there are alternatives.... you wouldn't, if you restricted yourself to certain YouTube (and other) sites. Varnish - I've just watched a video recommending W & N Gloss Varnish - it's good.  I use it, usually.  But the presenter didn't say don't use it immediately on completion - just that it would unify the painting and enhance colours.  Which it will.  It'll also crack and pull your paint off the board if you apply it too soon.   So having spent money you didn't need to spend on mediums and solvents - the idea of another video was that you should buy the cheapest paints you can (because they're "almost as good as the expensive brands": oh yes?  Really?) and  yet another suggests buying "value-pack" brushes - she recommends them because "I've always forgetting to clean mine, so it's not worth buying the more expensive ones" (but we're not all bone-idle, ducks - and don't want to keep throwing brushes away).  And what was the last one .... oh yes, always used tear-off palettes (because she also can't be bothered to clean her wooden one); and she holds up a tiny tear-off palette on which I could mix about two colours before needing an extra sheet.   Well; I meantersay - one could scream, could one not?  But I didn't.   Most of the advice outlined above is either wrong, or unnecessary.  I daresay it's well-meant, but you'll remember the lines about the Road to Hell and what it's paved with.  Far from making oil painting easier, it actually complicates it.  All you need with good quality paint is a minimal quantity of Linseed Oil, or perhaps Walnut Oil (more in the upper layers than the lower, as it doesn't make such a strong bond).  Good paint works without much medium, and often without any, if you first reduce it to the consistency you want with you palette knife, and of course if you've squeezed out enough to start with.  It doesn't really matter if you don't clean your palette every time - unless you like a clean, polished surface to work on: I'm the King of the Mucky Palette.  You do need enough space to work on (the Bob Ross palettes are actually very good in that respect!).  And the last absurdity - this one, I feel, takes any number of biscuits and follows it up with a plateful of sponge fingers: the point of buying "cadmium free" oil paints, and then using a hazardous solvent to break them down with, eludes me.  It is bonkers.  Cadmium and cobalt are heavy metals, but you're not going to hasten the end of the world by using them; companies which advertise cadmium-free paints, while continuing to flog hazardous solvents, aren't interested in your health - they're interested in their bottom-line, and in finding a marketing gimmick to fool the gullible.   There - I feel better for that!  Choose your advice with care - there is some good stuff on YouTube, and some complete rotten potatoes; and the same goes for the WetCanvas website, which has to contain more drivel per byte than just about any other.  

Ron - indeed.  I agree entirely with that - there IS good stuff on YouTube.  What troubles me a little is that people new to painting have no means of telling the good from the bad - so my advice would be to read a book or two (and actually BUY some dvd's from established artists) to give yourself a base of knowledge enabling you to say, of a particular presentation, 'that's just a pile of over-used knickers'.  And we don't want those, so we must discriminate.