Check out the section on this website about how to create really thick painting texture – you can create great affects by using a kind of plaster base and mixing it with a plastic adhesive such as PVA, to give it some elasticity. There are a few options that you can use for the plaster base but the best one I have found is stucco.
Whether you can find stucco in your part of the world is a big question. I have struggled to find it, particularly in the UK, and have had to bring it with me when travelling but I am sure there must be better ways of getting hold of it. I have experimented with things like artex and plaster mix, adding water and PVA to plaster powder, but the smoothest mixture that I have found is made with stucco. It also has some great cracking qualities if you put it on the canvas thickly enough and you can add watered down paint into the cracks to give an ‘aged’ kind of look.
You can also add other items to your texture mix like maybe rice or sand to make it thicker but you just need to remember that the thicker the texture is, the heavier the canvas and the painting is going to be so it will need much heavier hanging brackets and may be difficult to carry around if you are taking paintings to exhibitions etc.
If you find any extra ingredients that make good thick texture, or if you find a place to buy stucco in the UK then please feel free to comment here. I will post some pictures of some thick texture I have used in the past.