In the 1970s, Whitten experimented with new techniques and non-traditional tools for drawing and painting. Moving away from gestural mark-making allowed Whitten to update his visual vocabulary and manipulate planes and spaces.

Study for "Lapsang and Chinese Sincerity #3" (1975) relates to two seminal paintings that were included in Whitten's 2015 retrospective, "Lapsang" (1974) and "Chinese Sincerity" (1974), both distinguished by a strong L-shape on the left side of the canvas. Whitten completed multiple studies for these works; working out the ideas required several iterations in paper as part of the process. Whitten discusses the importance of this process in his 2015 interview with Rob Storr:

"There's a painting in the retrospective called Lapsang, after the tea lapsang souchong, which has a rich, smoky flavor. It's a vertical painting with an L shape made from wire. That L-shape comes from a tool that physicists use to detect gravitational waves…I appropriated that L-shape. The L-shaped wire is the disruptor in Lapsang. The wire is an L-shape placed beneath the canvas and mapped out on the drawing board. The key work that directed the process at that time was horizontally, meaning that I could pull something horizontally, absolutely parallel to the outer edge of the drawing board.”

- Jack Whitten, interview with Robert Storr, Five Decades of Painting exhibition catalogue (2015).