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I am just about to tread into the murky waters of Win32 graphics programming . . .
I thought I'd start with GDI (2D stuff like lines etc) Is this the 'best' way of doing things? Should I really be looking at DirectX?
Any advice would be most welcome . . .
Personally I wouldn't waste my time on GDI. That's just me though. I'm sure others will recommend it. If you're serious about doing games though, you'll outgrow the GDI quickly.
Don't jump into DirectX as it will confuse you. There are other ways of drawing good animations besides DirectX. I'd suggest looking at BitBlt before you dive into DirectX. Also, when you do begin to learn DirectX, do NOT copy and paste code from other programs, as you will find that you don't actually understand it later on. Type everything manually for practice purposes. But enough of that, BitBlt should be enough for now.
Whether or not it will confuse him isn't something you can say. I jumped right into it and had no problems. I'm glad I did since I had to look at the GDI after I'd already learned DirectX. It was one of the ugliest API's I've seen.