Canvas white pigment and calcium carbonate is rather brittle and susceptible to cracking. As lead-based paint is poisonous, care has to be taken in using it. Various alternative and more flexible canvas primers are commercially available, the most popular being a synthetic latex paint composed of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, bound with a thermo-plastic emulsion. Many artists have painted onto unprimed canvas, such as Jackson Pollock, Kenneth Noland, Francis Bacon, Helen Frankenthaler, Dan Christensen, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Color Field painters, Lyrical Abstractionists and others. Staining acrylic paint into the fabric of cotton duck canvas was more benign and less
Fractal expressionism paint onto the canvas. Taylor points to two aspects of Pollock's painting process that have the potential to introduce fractal patterns. The first is Pollock's motion as he moved around the canvas, which Taylor hypothesized followed a Levy flight, a type of chaotic motion that is known to leave behind a fractal pattern. More specifically, a number of studies have shown that the motions associated with human balance have fractal characteristics. The second source of chaos could be introduced through Pollock's pouring technique. Falling fluid has the capability of changing from a non-chaotic to a chaotic flow, meaning that Pollock