Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

cloud masses at any time – just a loose misty thick sk. The lightning did not show as “snakes” but as spreading sheets of vivid pink. The thunder was violent shaking the ground and rattling the windows.
Truly, as it says in the Negro spiritual “Steal away” God “calls me in the thunder” –
Apr. 28 – Wed.
All day on one little passage of the “Two Ravines” – most of it sponging out my failures. It was not until late afternoon I arrived at any sort of solution – a repeated proof that a picture once started, has an individuality and law of its own, which the artist must discover painfully step by step. He (the artist) thinks he wants certain things put in, but usually the picture says “no, I have other ideas,” and then it is up to the artist to discover by trial and error what the pictures inmost needs are.
Apr. 29 – Thurs.
A bright sunny day –
P.M. Two water-color studies of the hepaticas which are in their full glory now. Their rich odor comes up to me in the heat of the sun, reflected up from the ground. Oh, would that the hepatica season go on forever –
Apr. 29 – Thurs.
All day on the Two Ravines – on the foreground –
Evening B & I to Century to see “Flight for Freedom” based on