Sketch of the Week: Still Life Study

It's been a while since I've posted more than a quick pencil sketch or a digital drawing, so here's a study I recently made for a painting I'm planning out:

Before I adopted Gustave, I used to keep my still life compositions set up for as long as required to finish a painted or in-depth drawing, but given his penchant for knocking things over, I've had to change my approach and work off of studies instead. The colors in this work aren't accurate to the ones I was actually looking at, but between cheap paint and the ever-so-convenient artistic license, I took a few liberties.

So what's the story behind this piece? You'll have to wait until I finish the actual painting to find out.