When artist Julia Sterland was a little girl her favourite place to visit was the National Gallery, Room 23 to be exact, home to the later works of Rembrandt.

“I spent a lot of time looking at those faces,” she tells me from her studio in Shenley, “they became like friends.“

Ever since this early encounter the Dutch master has been an important influence on Julia. Although she pursued a career in medicine, working for many years as a GP, she has since returned to art, forging a career in portraiture. She paints in a figurative style, capturing what she sees in front of her, as she sees it.

“Everything is in what you see,“ she explains. “The most important thing is to paint what we see now, not what we remember, or a construction of the mind. A person’s personality will be captured indirectly because it’s all there.

“You can only do that if you’re engaged at the present moment. It keeps you there, that’s the fascination with it, you can’t be thinking about anything else. If you start to think how would this person like to look? Is he a happy person? Is he a kind person? Has he got a lot of money?, all those things will stop you looking.“

Many have sat for Julia, but she has recently completed painting her most prestigious subject to date. Not quite a person but a painting – Rembrandt’s Self Portrait at the Age of 63.

Given access and an easel at the National Portrait Gallery, Julia spent two days a week for two months stood in front of the masterpiece, in an attempt to capture her artistic idol.

“It was a bit daunting to start with,“ she explains, “because you’re in that room with those paintings and you’ve got a lot of people walking by. After that you develop a method of shutting off from people.

“Because they kept coming round giving guided tours, I learnt quite a lot about his history, before I only knew him in terms of the paintings.“

Rembrandt’s self-portrait is understood to be his last, completed only a matter of months before his death in 1669. At the time of its painting, Rembrandt was bankrupt, living in a poor district of Amsterdam and going blind.

“When the guides came round and said all this it made me want to cry,“ admits Julia. “You can feel how desperate he must have been in the rest of his life.

“Art is a way of switching off from everything else because you’re looking at something closely and trying to put it down – you can’t possibly worry about anything else if you’re doing it well.

“I reckon that’s why he did it, because it took his mind off everything else: ’I may have no money but I can do this, so I’m going to do it’. It’s sad but that’s probably the reason why it’s so good. If he’d still been paid a lot he might not have done it – it’s pure for that reason.“

After so many hours spent contemplating Rembrandt’s last painting, the man and his works, the artist now feels even closer to Julia.

“I feel like I know him,“ she says, “It’s like when you know someone really well and you can rely on them, but they can’t talk back to you, a great advantage. I don’t want to describe it in words. It’s a different kind of knowing and I’d spoil it if I put it into words.“

Julia’s painting is going to be unveiled at Radlett Art Expo.

Julia Sterland will be displaying her Rembrandt copy at Radlett Art Expo, The Radlett Centre, Aldenham Avenue, on Sunday, January 20. Details: www.artexporadlett.co.uk