That time my uncle told me to just 'let the paint do the work'

My uncle Bill, who painted houses for 30 years, gave me this advice when I tried to sketch a raccoon at 2 a.m. during a bad insomnia streak. He said not to fight the brush, just let the paint blob and swirl on its own. I took it literally, and ended up with a creature that looked like a cross between a rat and a burnt pancake. The shading was all wrong, the eyes were just two black holes, and somehow it had five legs on one side. Took me about 20 minutes of laughing at myself before I realized his advice was meant for walls, not for watercolor portraits of nocturnal trash pandas. Has anyone else gotten well-meaning advice from a skilled pro that just completely misses the point of this hobby? Would love to hear your misfires.

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