Practice creating textures with paper and pencil. Make small compositions of contrasting shapes and lines. These can be reflections of items in the immediate environment, such as food, weather or animals.
Create bold textures with a palette knife or by allowing brush strokes to show in the final painted rendition.
Blend colors to compose smooth textures. Use solvents, especially made for a particular type of paint, to smooth the painting surface and experiment with combining colors. Very thin oil paint will allow the canvas texture to show through the paint.
Mix wax, resins or lacquers with paints to concoct new mediums, congruent with the existing paint body.
Scratch the wet paint surface to build texture. This will allow underneath colors to show and create interesting surface character.
Use rags, sponges, found objects and fingers to discover new textural possibilities in your painting.