If you wish to create texture and broken color in watercolor, particularly for foliage and grass in a landscape or hair and fur textures in a portrait or animal painting, you need to use a dry brush technique.

This technique is just what its name implies–painting with the bare minimum of paint on the brush so that the color only partially covers the paper.

You can use this technique with opaque gouache and acrylic as well. In all cases, the paint should be used with just enough water to make it malleable (or none at all). The best effects for texture are with bristle brushes.