This portrait of crime writer, radio dramatist and broadcaster Val McDermid took eighteen portrait sittings to complete. The artist Audrey Grant erased the existing drawing at the start of each two-hour session with McDermid and began to draw again on the same piece of paper, with only traces of what was left behind. Grant used charcoal on thick paper to enable the drawing to withstand the constant reworking. This long-durational process was central to Grant’s method of intensive and extensive investigation as she endeavoured to evoke a sense of the presence of her sitter rather than a direct likeness. This drawing and Portrait of Val McDermid II featured in The Long Look: The Making of a Portrait exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2019.