I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The background took a couple of days to do. It took three layers of the blue-violet mix to give the drama I wanted. Each layer must be bone dry before applying the next layer. You can't really tell from the image just how varied the dark color is. I mixed Indathrone Blue, Carbazoe Violet, and Sepia together, allowing some of each color to stand out here and there. I also reworked the two apples at top, and finished the apple on the table.
Still to be done: the darker side of the basket, the design of the cloth under the set-up, the shadows of the basket and the apple onto the cloth. Then of course, there will be lots of tweaking.