This although a good project, is taking an unnecessarily long time, because I did a complete monochrome value study in full detail when my intention was to make it a color finished piece. The lesson for hard-heads like myself it that details are completely irrelevant when doing a value study that is to be the foundation of a color work. The time spent can not only be wasted labor, but can be an impedement to further progress because you are slavishly trying to reproduce monochrome detail and are coloring in the lines instead of being engaged with seeing the subject.
Take your value study only so far, build on its frame and then abandon it to progress in color.
Do not start a painting like this example directly below. It is just ridiculouisly stupid. For one thing my proportions are off to begin with and I am allowing myself to build a disproportionate and wrong course that I could occupy far too much of my time working on. Only after much effort do I discover that I have lead myself astray.
Instead, take your value study only as far as below and work with tones instead of lines or details. If you must use lines to establish a most basic framework seriously limit yourself to less than ten lines to do so. That's just a random number, but seems like an appropriate limit. More effort is wasted effort.