Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, both artists – the first of whom were Mexican muralists – and companies began to explore the potential of the new binders. Acrylic artist paints can be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, although the washes are fast and permanent once dry. Water-soluble artist-quality acrylic paints became commercially available in the early 1960s, offered by Liquitex and Bocour under the trade name of "Aquatec." Water-soluble Liquitex and Aquatec proved to be ideally suited for stain painting. The staining technique with water-soluble acrylics made diluted colors sink and hold fast into raw canvas. Painters such as Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Dan Christensen, Sam Francis, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Larry Poons, Jules Olitski, Gene Davis, Ronald Davis, Sam Gilliam and others successfully used water-based acrylics for their new stain, color field paintings.