9 Birds of Prey
For only the second time, Alejandra Vargas dares to lift the cover of the sketchpad. In the shade of a willow tree, sitting with her back against the trunk and her toes fiddling with the blades of green grass, she braces herself.
The cover, simply titled "London" in large, capitalized letters, seems to Alejandra to be deceptively placid. Studying it for several minutes, she believes that London wrote it in block letters, perhaps as a child or teenager, and enhanced her name with touches of artistic flair through the years. The title now resembles a Western saloon sign from the 1800s with whimsical serifs.
The first charcoal sketch is a doe's face, created by an unsophisticated hand. Perhaps London's first-ever serious sketch and attempt at fine art. The lines are si
