Attached Link: http://www.blender.org/tutorials-help/manuals-books/

You don't have to have a paint program to add textures to your models, you can also use blender's procedural textures.  Those won't export with the models and they often don't look as realistic, but it's good to get the hang of blender texture basics before diving into images and uv mapping.

Blender noob-to-pro is a good resource, as pointed out above, as are the online manual and the tutorials on the blender website.  Also check out the links in the blender forum header.