If you, like me, are an oils enthusiast but sometimes just don't have the luxury of waiting for them to dry, then try the Acrylic Retarder Medium. I used the Windsor & Newton version but I assume there are others. This enables much more blending of the paint in a similar way to oils but still allows the paint to dry within an hour or so.

I went to see an exhibition by an Iraqi abstract artist who said that he tends to use a layer of acrylics covered by a layer of oils. I had read that you could put one over the other (but not the other way round) and this gives you a quick base coat and then the finish of oils without having to wait for the layers to dry in between.

There are many ways to add texture to a painting - the most usual one is gesso but you can also use quite a number of other things. Ace hardware have quite a few useful products including caulk which can subsequently be painted over. You can also save old paint and use that as a base giving texture by using a ridged spatula or soemthing similar.