I agree that making copies of some masters can be useful for growing in a direction consonant with being a contemporary portraitist (not people dressed in modern clothes painted in a hundred year-old style, or worse, people dressed in antique costume to justify an old style).
For me, the great transitional portraitist was Sir Thomas Lawrence. His times kept him to painting smoothly render flesh, but everything else was subject to his astonishing brushwork. In a way, he brightened Velazquez's approach into something that has remained valid for quite a time.
I had always admired his approach to a saucy and lively Elizabeth Farren...so coquettish and seductive. He transfixes the viewer with her sidelong gaze and the liquid paint handling hold all of the secrets to how to paint.
This is a large copy that I made (about 70" tall). The photo isn't as good as I'd like and the light is reflecting into one section, but it does demonstrate getting into his head and trying to learn from it. In the course of painting it, Elizabeth took on a presence for me and I have it on a wall in the studio. Every morning, when I go to the studio, there she is down at the other end, welcoming me. It's a nice way to start the day.
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