Robert Indiana kept a series of illustrated journals during the late 1950s and 1960s, in which he discusses the development of his work as well as his daily life on Coenties Slip.

This journal page covers August 29–30, 1959. Indiana's August 29 entry records that he stretched his last canvas, 50 x 40 inches, and that he gave his painting Free Form #1 a coat of cobalt blue. Indiana often recorded current events in his journals, here he notes that President Eisenhower was at Chequers (the British prime minister's country residence), and that an "Anglo-American agreement" occurred.

This event inspired the title for a work (Chequers), a sketch of which is found in his entry for August 30. Indiana writes that:

"on that most well stretched canvas of yesterday I began, in the late afternoon, a long delayed cerulean, thinking when I started that it would be coupled with orange, as in [Ellsworth] Kelly's "Peel," but I ended up liking it just blue and white. This will probably pass, however, for my eye seems directed to the fuller harmonies of multi-color: the white and one color is a little bit too much Kelly and [Jack] Youngerman."

Indiana also notes that he cleaned out the tower and mopped the deck "in preparation for setting up three July [paintings]."