What do the front and back of knit & purl stitches look like?

[purplegirl]

Hello, friendly people!

(Commercial Break: I LOVE THIS SITE!!! I never could understand the diagrams in books and online that show stitches, but videos!!! - THANK YOU!!! )

I have been experimenting today and have discovered that:

1. when you knit a row, turn around and knit again, and keep on knitting every row, you get a bumpy thing, kind of like unununun intertwined.
2. when you knit a row, turn around and purl a row, then knit a row, then purl a row, you get one side with the nununun bumps, but tighter together, and the other side is smooth with stitches that look like lots of vvvvvv.
3. when you purl a row, turn around and purl again, and keep on purling every row, you get... garbage. or rather, a badly nununun row followed by a vvvvvv row, bad nunununun, vvvvvvv etc. kind of like horizontal ribbing.

Question: do my results demonstrate that I was doing the stitches correctly? Is it impossible to purl every row, and should that not be done?

If I've described the stitches wrongly, can someone post a link to a photo of what it should look like?

Thank you, friends!

purplegirl