The question is: Why use grids when painting from life? Assael only paints from life, and I think I've seen another photo from this demonstration that shows the models in the room. Seems like grids are only useful for transferring from two dimensional images.
I'd imagine he intended the grid as a compositional tool, as already suggested here. This painting was done at a conference in San Francisco, I believe, and the grid may have been made more conspicuous for the sake of the audience.
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