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This started as a simple idea of a piano and light.  I wanted to work a darker painting and practice painting a single light source within the painting showing the light falling and fading on objects around the light.  I also wanted to take a simple setting and make it complex with a complicated wallpaper design.  

I set up the still life and took several reference photos with high and low camera exposure times to get bright and dark options.  Even the though the intent is a darker painting, getting photos of a bright version of the still life allows me to see the details in the shadow areas that I cannot see in the darker photos.  For the wallpaper, I found a design on-line that I thought would work well.  After doing several value and color studies I then printed the various elements of the photo references and traced the images onto the canvas...yes, tracing is not a bad thing when you are going for a complex final painting.

The first value study below was a simple pencil drawing.  I was messing around with the values to see how the light falls on its surroundings and how dark I can get everything.

The first painted study was using Burnt Sienna and Titanium White to test the feel of the paint and how to manipulate the light.

Next was a Burnt Umber, Black, and Titanium White to see how dark I needed to get the various objects.

With the first color study I tried to maintain the value relationships from the previous versions and mess with the colors.  This turned out too colorful (high chroma) and I needed to dull down the colors a bit for the next study.

This next one turned out much better.  I lowered the overall values to make it darker and then grayed down the colors to lower the chroma giving the painting more of a musky atmosphere I was trying to achieve.  Also, I wanted the turquoise wallpaper to be the highest chroma which allows a nice contract to the duller reddish brown of the piano.

Painting the final version was made so much easier with all the studies leading up to it.  It left very little guesswork and allowed me to spend more time on technique and details rather than trying to figure out values and color.  I like the slight angle of the light that casts a not so perfectly parallel shadow on the wall...gives it an odd little charm.