Jean-Paul Riopelle to abstract expressionism), in which he used myriad tumultuous cubes and triangles of multicolored elements, facetted with a palette knife, spatula, or trowel, on often large canvases to create powerful atmospheres. The presence of long filaments of paint in his painting from 1948 through the early 1950s has often been seen as resulting from a dripping technique like that of Jackson Pollock. Rather, the creation of such effects came from the act of throwing, with a palette knife or brush, large quantities of paint onto the stretched canvas (positioned vertically). Riopelle's voluminous impasto became just as important as color. His
Color Field Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, 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: "When I first started doing the stain paintings, I left large areas