Inspired by Richard Cosway

Princess Amelia, by Richard Cosway. Watercolor on ivory. (1790) Well I don't do watercolour and ivory is a no-no but I do love this guys work, it was a romantic time and he could do 10 portraits a day and earned a small fortune. With no camera's it wasn't uncommon that lovers wanted a likeness made of their sweethearts. Roll on to me and I find myself trying to do a portrait of a girl I fell in love with many years ago, certainly the most beautiful woman I ever met and a beautiful soul too. Its impossible to do her justice and working at a small scale (10cm x 10 cm) I have my work cut out. This one is time consuming too, I spend far more time looking than painting and on such a smooth surface I think I am going to apply many coats and build the image up making constant corrections. I wonder if it is possible to overwork acrylic on copper, I think not actually but the smooth gradients I wish to achieve may be very painful to get right and might take a few attempts. Anyway the first thing was to matte the surface and tape the edges to make it more pleasant to handle. I have overdone it here going for 1.2mm thick copper sheet, 0.8mm is probably OK but copper is softer than silver and I don't want it bending. I used a scalpel and removed the tape to make a window exactly 10cm by 10cm. I may attempt to frame this if it turns out well (that will be a project in itself) and I plan to varnish afterwards which should keep a border of shiny copper around the image (if air can get to it then it would go dark but maybe varnish will keep it fresh) I applied 4 coats of titanium white. The paint is dragged by the brush when wet and should bond to the other acrylic but it is hard work to build an opaque layer. This may come to be an advantage blending but remains to be seen, it will require patience anyway. I never realised titanium looks so blue, it does seem that way though... anway I sketched out the outline of the head and placed the features carefully. and put down some burnt umber for the dark area's in the hair. This hair is going to be a problem, actually it may all be a problem but I am just going to keep looking at it and amending until everything looks right. I am working from a black and white image and taking colours from a different image, Shadow will now go in beneath the nose and I will try to fade into the mid-tones. I need to correct the mouth a little (hers is fuller) open the eye a little behind the nose...and correct the way the hair disappears into her shoulder.

I wonder if there is any white which is whiter than the one I am using, and this is starting to look dirty, I am not sure how to soften it and I am having difficulty getting the tones right and I am not even sure I am using the right colour

I am not sure I am brave enough to continue, I think I am going to make it worse rather than better.

I corrected the shadow of the hair as it falls across other hair then the forehead and thought I better varnish it to stop me fiddling... Unfortunately there seems to be some reaction between the varnish and the paint, is this because I varnished it too soon? She is turning blue now...