Dear friends,
I don’t have much time to write these days. But it’s been a month since my previous newsletter, and I wanted to say hello. Europe is being ravaged by long-lasting storms this week, and most of us are curled up on our sofas with blankets and takeaway, waiting for the last day of rain (👀). I’m in a couch away from home, because we picked exactly the right time to go on holiday to one of the rainiest cities in Portugal. But there are things to look forward to, so keep reading!
Lunar New Year Exhibition at Mori Homemade Cafe
If you happen to be in London this and next month, and enjoy matcha and cake, Mori Homemade cafe is hosting an exhibition about the Lunar New Year of the Fire Horse from February 17th to March 17th. There will be thirty paintings on display, all by different artists, created for the event. They are printed using Risograph, a method that overlays colours on top of each other to create different combinations. The final result is not fully predictable because colours are not all printed at the same time, but here’s what mine might look like, more or less:
I wanted to paint something close to my heart, and was thinking about how much I’m looking forward to taking our little one to see fireworks. East Asian culture is a big part of my life in London, from friends to favourite foods and places where I hang out; I hope this silly drawing brings out how much I admire it.
About the exhibition itself, other people drew actual horses, which I kind of dodged with the hat situation, because I’m hopeless! If you’re interested in seeing everybody else’s work and perhaps acquire one of 20 limited edition copies of this (or just feel like exploring a new, delicious cafe), here’s a link to the shop in Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jKpETL7KBYQtYqN89
The Last Day of Rain (eh)
Last year, I promised you’d see a comic book come to life! It’s coming along quite slowly, but at least this month I managed to prepare the file with all the pages and the script on top for reference, so now all (😅) I have to do is draw:
I did find a couple of minutes to thumbnail the first page… It’s absolutely horrid, as the first thumbnails of all my books are, but it puts things in motion, maybe? I’ll show you, but don’t make anything of it and don’t try to decipher it. It would be a futile effort. 😬
Since I’m not doing any comic book events in 2026, I’ll have a bit more time to work on this, so hopefully it will be finished by the end of the year, even if it’s over 100 pages! When it’s closer to completion, I’ll put together a campaign on Kickstarter or find another way to bring this final volume to those of you who are interested in getting ahold of it.
What Comes After?
A friend once asked me this question about finishing The Last Day of Rain. Back then, I couldn’t reply because I thought it would never end, but now that it’s (kind of) close, I have been thinking about it.
Because I learned everything myself, this was always meant as sort of a graduation project, to use as an excuse to learn how to create worlds, characters and stories. It’s not perfect at all, but I did learn a lot and certainly won’t stop after this!
I have more stories to tell, for which I will probably use shorter formats. That way, I can focus on perfecting the script and the art and also finish in less time. Honestly, my brain is twitching with so many ideas that I don’t have time to realise. This will possibly also lead to collaboration with other writers and artists (fingers crossed).
I also want to explore different media, like single-narrative illustration, animation, maybe children’s books, which I got a lot into lately for obvious reasons. Regardless of format, I want to focus on art about human connection, which is why I started this whole thing in the first place and kind of forgot a bit along the way.
But that’s all in the future, so we’ll see. For now, there’s life, and a 100-page script. 😛
What are YOU looking forward to once the rain is gone?
Wishing you all an excellent 2026 ahead!
Thank you for reading! The four chapters of The Last Day of Rain are available in my online store at shop.claudiamatosa.com, as well as a few other books and art prints.
You can also find me more or less active on Instagram and Bluesky.