Tutorial that explains interaction with the OpenERP ORM?

I am in process of writing OpenERP modules and want to learn how: (1) To be able to create model objects (2) Store data or records in them via an API. (3) Query them to retrieve data. (Just like we do in Django Models using the Queryset API) Where can I get a good tutorial that explains the above 3 cases with all the available methods? Also, I want to interact with the ORM with the help of easy to use Python API's without using XML-RPC's as much as possible.