Charles Burchfield, Journals, August 24, 1948

To Zimmerman Rd. to do the grasshopper picture. An ideal day for it – hot, dry, the air full of insect sounds.
Set up my easel first, at the edge of the swampy pasture at the north side of the woods. – then ate lunch.
All afternoon on the painting – unpremeditated was the introduction of a yellow & black spider (Miranda) feeding on a grasshopper. I found it to be an ideal way of working – i.e. on one day to work out the conventionalizations & abstract motifs, then the next to work on the spot, so as to be able to give life to the forms invented. I worked boldly and with great absorption.

About 6:30 finish, & for walk at the south end of the woods for a bouquet of flowers, sunset & [???]. Then pull the car up a bit so as to see the sun go down & ate lunch. Hardly had I parked, when a small spider chose the front fender as an anchor for one of his lines & started in to build a web. He almost had it complete when I was ready to go on. I hated to break his web. From where I sat, I counted seven Miranda spiders in the ditch plants.

Drove on to more open territory – parked again, & for a walk eastwards. The sound & the feel of small flowered cinquefoil strands broken by my feet very intriguing. - by bus home.

Evening - played Schubert Symphony No. 9.

Charles E. Burchfield, August 24, 1948