“Do what your hand naturally sort of does”

 

She described an authentic experience of creating something by ridding of any of the ego involved. Over video, during quarantine.

 

“I try to make something that makes it feel unique to me but also I try not to think too much about it  

 

I think everyone sort of has a natural way that they draw like if you weren’t even thinking and you just sort of draw  — that’s when you create your best work”

 

“I’ve learned that lesson the hard way because I’ve tried to replicate other people’s style 

 

Or like industry styles or like what I thought other people wanted — and my art has always suffered because of that so iv'e learned to just draw what i like.”

 

“I have some experience under my belt with starting a project and failing and sort of being able to do a post mortem and think about, “why did this fail?” and sort of approach the next story with the knowledge that I’ve gained from my past failures.”

 

Now, Meyer is about a third of the way through  her comic Saint Catherine (art above and rightel and below).

 

As it says on her website: 

 

Catherine O'Brien is your average mid-20s girl trying to balance work, family, relationships, and an entire legion of hell.

 

“My project is feeling successful because I’m still doing it I’m still excited about It this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with a graphic novel or a comic. I’m about to hit 100 pages which is really exciting.

 

Because for me that’s the most important thing for me right now.

 

Quality’s important but I want to have something that’s done and finished.” 

 

“How I choose to draw each page really does come down to a balance of aesthetics and being practical.

 

And so that’s (about) being really strategic  about pages interspersing details and background shots with the more sort of illustrative or suggestive backgrounds that you sort of get the sense of what it is.”

 

Something about backgrounds that I’ve learned over time they’re a really good opportunity to add to the atmosphere as well as add to the character especially if you have a character’s room or space that they’re in a lot. Everyone’s space sort of reflects them so that’s a really good opportunity to sort of give the character more depth and make them a little more real.”

 

"I think the other reason why it has been more successful is that I’ve been really open about sharing it with people.”

 

“I’ve typically been more secretive about sharing my projects um and I’ve found that feed back from other people really helps me.  When I see that other people are excited about a story it makes me excited about it.”

 

Her metrics come from the success of her Patreon, yet another consideration for artists looking to reach their audience and earn money for the hard work and passion put into their project.

​

“One of the things that I like about Patreon is it’s more someone backing a long term project or an artist themselves and it’s been pretty successful for me, I wouldn’t say it’s the most lucrative thing.

 

“Most of the money that I get from patron I use to put back into the comic so I use it to get prints made, to get the actual printed comic made anything that I feel will go toward making  my project or my comic better.”

 

A Clevelander, she now lives in Brooklyn and works as a designer in the tech industry.

“I can compartmentalize my day job as sort of, ‘I’m doing this work for someone else. This is, you know, what they want me to do.’ and I say, 'Okay, I can do that I have this skill that I can offer you I’ll do it and in exchange you’ll give me money and stability and I can go home and have the complete opposite of that and just do whatever I want'.”

 

“Of course at the end of the day I’m creating this story for myself a but there’s nothing better than feeling like people enjoy it and that people relate to it and that they get excited for a new update so that helps me stay motivated.”

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

“I don’t know if its’ entirely fair to say because I moved to New York I was able to begin and keep up with this big project but…

​

It’s more like I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel like I can truly finish it and that all happened when it was in New York. But it’s hard to really pinpoint why that is because I think there’s a lot of variables in it.”

 

“It makes me look at my time as a little more preciously and so I just know how to make the most out of a day, you know, it’s so cliche but they say 'the New York minute,' but I truly do feel like time is pretty relative. 

 

And it’s sort of what you make it. I think you can always find the time and its sort of what you make it I think it’s just about like prioritizing your day.”

 

“And learning how to make the most of your time because I can make good progress on my art in an hour but sometimes I feel like I needed like a full day to create things I can create a lot of good things In just an hour.”

 

“I would say time management has helped me be able to create more and I think also I’m around people who are creating cool things  so it makes me want to do it as well.”

 

In venerating her own self, she’s found a key.

 

“In the past I’ve always sort of strayed away from writing anything that was too autobiographical or too personal. You always hear about the self-insert character and that was something I didn’t want to do.

 

A lot of it feels very sort of like a mirror of my life which I think was actually helped me get excited about doing it and head helped me write it because when I have writers block I just draw from my own life and it literally makes things easier but also I think there’s that level of sort of id that we all have where we want to talk about ourselves.

​

We all have that desire to tell our own story whether we’re shy about it or not that’s a very I think that’s an experience that a lot of people can relate to and that’s one of the reason I can call this project successful

 

It will be 100 percent successful when I finish it.

 

Anna Meyer is a graphic designer, a comics artist and a human being living in New York city. Her work can be found on annacmeyer.com