Editing Color field (section)

=== Stain painting ===

[[Joan Miró]] was one of the first and most successful stain painters. Although staining in oil was considered dangerous to cotton canvas in the long run, Miró's example during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s was an inspiration and an influence on the younger generation. One of the reasons for the success of the color field movement was the technique of staining. Artists would mix and dilute their paint in buckets or coffee cans making a fluid liquid and then they would pour it into raw unprimed canvas, generally [[cotton duck]]. The paint could also be brushed on or rolled on or thrown on or poured on or sprayed on, and would spread into the fabric of the canvas. Generally artists would draw shapes and areas as they stained. Many different artists employed staining as the technique of choice to use in making their paintings. [[James Brooks (painter)|James Brooks]], [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Paul Jenkins (United States painter)|Paul Jenkins]], and dozens of other painters found that pouring and staining opened the door to innovations and revolutionary methods of drawing and expressing meaning in new ways. The number of artists who stained in the 1960s greatly increased with the availability of [[acrylic paint]]. Staining acrylic paint into the fabric of cotton duck canvas was more benign and less damaging to the fabric of the canvas than the use of oil paint.
In 1970 artist [[Helen Frankenthaler]] commented about her use of staining:
<blockquote>When I first started doing the stain paintings, I left large areas of canvas unpainted, I think, because the canvas itself acted as forcefully and as positively as paint or line or color. In other words, the very ground was part of the medium, so that instead of thinking of it as background or negative space or an empty spot, that area did not need paint because it had paint next to it. The thing was to decide where to leave it and where to fill it and where to say this doesn't need another line or another pail of colors. It's saying it in space.<ref>De Antonio, Emile. ''Painters Painting, a Candid History of The Modern Art Scene 1940–1970'', P.82, Abbeville Press 1984, {{ISBN|0-89659-418-1}}</ref></blockquote>