What an elegant painting and such curious strength! I'm fascinated by it, almost don't know how best to describe my sensation?! GREAT PIECE!
As for the troubles...uh...HUH? That really sounds like some wacked out stuff, particularly the zoom weirdness, that makes me wonder, if it had anything to do with Verve or whether you accidentally activated windows magnification?! I know you're working on a mac via bootcamp, so it could very well be that you hit the equivalent of the [windows key] and [+] or [-] by accident, probably wanting to change the brush size?!
Anyway... next time that happens, hit [windows key]+[escape] to exit the windows magnifier again!
The noise issue you've had may well have been a canvas texture interaction you didn't expect. Brush #9 recognizes the canvas texture during a stroke, unlike the other brushes. When you're aware of it, you can take advantage of it plenty of times, but when you didn't expect it, well.... yeah, that could be distracting. However, in the upcoming release things are mildly different. While that particular thing may still be the same, but you'll see. I'm pretty excited!
Anyway, I'm SUPER HAPPY to see you show up again and come with such an inspiring painting, when it comes to color choices! I'm sure, once you get more comfortable with it, you'll gain greater control again to tackle more confidently lighting and textures. But nothing takes away from the elegance of it and the 1920's touch that I so love!