Starting a new theme: help and tips needed

Hello,

I’m just learning XHTML and CSS (I’ve got them sorted, at least in a basic but useful way) and I’ve decided to use WordPress as my blogging application. My plan is to make a very simple blog with my own theme. I have a very rough design (https://junk.monsterspond.com/old/index.html) that I’m going to ‘integrate’ into WordPress.

I decided to pull apart the default theme and take a gander. Much of it looks like a fusion of HTML and PHP (the WordPress stuff), so I’m going to rip out the HTML and then see what the HTML bits actually do. For instance, I opened the index.php and removed the HTML and now my test post isn’t formated or contained within divs or styled by the CSS.

I stumbled upon the function.php and had a brief flutter of panic, but that passed (I moved to a different file).

So – are there any good tutorials, tips or suggestions anyone has? I’m utterly new to WordPress, I’ve used Nucleus and Joomla a bit in the past – but nothing crazy.

Thanks.