modifiying front page to show customised loop

I’d like my front page to show a loop, with a thumbnail for each article, article title, first line of post, plus post info and all that gubbins.

is there a simple way of doing this, or a tutorial to explain step by step how it’s done? all the information i’ve seen so far on loops appears to be quite complicated and not ‘beginner friendly’

ideally i’d like the loop to look a bit like this… http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/5787/picture2vh.png