August 9-10, 1944
graphite pencil on unlined paper
9 5/8 x 11 5/8 inches
Burchfield Penney Art Center courtesy of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, 2000
a sinkable half dead tree to use for a “Song of the Cicada” picture. Men repairing roads in one place—had to drive car over an open culvert on two planks.
Zimmerman Road, and northward, and came unexpectedly to the spot, where I spent a day last year (See March 24, 1943)—I know I had found me “spot” for the day’s painting. Wild swampy tracts, with dense woods of hemlocks and beeches. Many dead pines—gauntly picturesque.
All afternoon on painting of a dead tree, on which I put a cicada from studies I had made Monday (in the morning a cicada suddenly flew down and lit on my shirt. The next day he was dead, probably from some parasite). It was hot and windy and at no time did I feel that I was getting anywhere with my pictures.
Finished at 6:30—I reparked the care in the shade of a woods, and ate my supper, studying the picture the while. Afterwards for walk on both sides of the road. B request of everlasting and a swamp grass. Blackberries. To the west a swampy tract with many yellow & black spiders.
Home at dusk—
Aug 10—Thurs.
Hot & windy. Dull all day—
Evening B & I to Strand to see “Once on a Time”