40 Strokes And No More - You Can Count On It

"40 Strokes Only" - You can see my stroke counts on the side of the study. 

I had a blast in Randy Blasquez's class yesterday. She demonstrated brush work and showed the class how you could  paint a still life with only 40 brush strokes. Then it was our turn.
This exercise forces you to  think about how you are going to use those strokes. I opted for the big, flat brush off the bat with large pre-mixed puddles of greys - both warm and cool. I loaded the  brush with as much paint as I possible could and carefully laid down the paint on the shadow side. Then I took another big brush loaded with light from 5 different puddles light colors.
After that,  I had to decide how I was going to apply warm and cool greys to the body. Would I have enough strokes left over for highlight?
Now each time you fill a brush with paint and use it, you must count it as a stroke. Drawing the object doesn't count. Only when you start filling it in. Lift the brush off the canvas and you must count it as a stroke.  I had to test a highlight to see if it was light enough and it counted as a stroke. The brush stroke tallies were off the side. You can barely make out numbers I wrote down to let me know how many stroke I had.
Great study. Excellent lesson.