Break up cartoon with alimony.

“I just told him to pack his bags, get out, and send me large checks.”

Of course, this is a New Yorker cartoon, or SHOULD be a New Yorker one. Tell it to Mankoff. This is for the Illustration Friday topic of PACKED.

I guess divorce isn’t very funny, is it? Probably why I don’t have many divorce cartoons. I was trying to take a different tangent on love gone wrong — and she may be just posturing here. You know she’s spoiled, and used to being taken care of. Rich b.i.t.c.h. thinks the world is her oyster. And it is!

The colors in this cartoon are spring, Easter colors. I decided to go the opposite way of the subject matter. I’m always trying out different color combinations, and it can be a struggle. I didn’t go to art school – which is true of most cartoonists – okay, cartoonists who write their own material.? (We’re writers, first!) I keep thinking that art school would have revealed the mystery of color.

I have taken occasional classes here and there, though – I love a good teacher! – and I had a watercolor teacher who said I liked greyed colors. I was reading about this a few weeks ago, and I may be a tonalist – which was news to me, as I never heard that word before.? This museum catalog described it as:

The understated color in most Tonalist art, or its complete absence, as well as its preternatural evocations, appealed to turn-of-the-century photographers seeking to assert the legitimacy of that medium as a serious art form which could transcend the mere documentation of reality.

Dark, dreary, dreamy colors. But who the hell would buy cartoons colored like that? Maybe I’ll save tonalism for my Christmas cards.