message in a bottle

Some of you may be regular readers, and know we've been in the studio for the last month and a bit. We are now back, and in a whirlwind of activity, trying to finish up the designs, and paintings we worked on during our time away.  It's a really interesting process to immerse yourself completely in studio time for a month - granted there were some day to day disruptions, and life still goes on, but it was quite an eye opener for both of us.  Being a small team of two, Jason and I find it almost impossible to find time to fit everything in.  Any illustrator, designer, creative person understands how challenging it is to be customer service, bookkeeper, artist, despatch, pick pack, IT person, stylist, photographer, etc.  So it was like a holiday for us... and now we have a lot of catching up to do, and quite a bit to finalise.  

Some of what came out during this time was a series I call Message In A Bottle.  A small collection of acrylic on linen board paintings came out of it, and I'm looking forward to exploring this idea further. I really like the idea that rather than a message being a literal word, it is a visual experience, and in that, it is more open to interpretation.  One of the paintings pictured below. 

Message In A Bottle - ©Kristina Sostarko

neon sorbet

While one half of the world looks to autumn, the other half looks forward to spring.  This night and day, dark, and light, warm and cold. The contrast of life reminds us how big our planet really is, and the wonder of it all.  We are a ball floating in space! And within that ball, billions of life forms... billions of moments. Somewhere right now someone is eating sorbet!  And with that little bit of introspection into life as we know it, here is our latest design.  We call it neon sorbet.  It is part of our conversations in summer series... It will be in the store shortly.  Have a wonderful day everyone! Life is amazing. 

neon sorbet

inaluxe shop + the crumple zone

As autumn sets in nicely, we are looking forward to things like apple crumble, hot soup, and lots of studio time to work on new designs and projects! It's all very exciting for us, and we can't wait to share all the new inaluxe with you.  Of course, as we are a small studio of two, we will need to close our online store for approximately a month during this time to give us the time we need to get everything done.  The shop will be closed from Sunday the 14th of April, and we will re-open on the 20th of May, at the earliest.  Many of the designs you see in the store now will not be available when we re-open, so if you have had your heart set on a particular design, now is the time to grab it! 

This is one of our new designs - the crumple zone. It's all about warm hugs, affection, happiness, and good times. This might means getting into your favourite jumper, sleeping in on Sundays, or having a nice big fat hug with someone you adore. 

the crumple zone

And the winner is...

Thanks so much everyone for entering our limited edition print giveaway.  We had over 100 entries in the end, (from our facebook page, and here) so luckily it was a case of "pick a random number' as all your comments were so lovely to read, it would have been hard for us to pick one ourselves.  And the winner is....  McConnachie Art. A big warm congratulations from us, and thanks again everyone! 

The first "Happiness" (above) created in 2009-2010. We originally put it forward (in a different colour arrangement) for a card to Earth Greetings, but it never made the cut - coming soon in one form or another as a print.  

Yep, it's inaluxe giveaway time!

Hello lovely people. It's been so long since we have had a chance to sit, and write, and I mean really write.  But things are changing, and for the better.  While this year so far has proven to be more work than two people can manage, we have made some changes -- and that means more studio time, more new work, and so much more time to hang out here, and do things like a new weekly feature where we share the creative work of other artists, and designers we love. We are looking forward to that! 

But for now, to welcome the coming of this glorious autumn, we are having a giveaway! We are giving away one large A2 paper size giclee print of our new limited edition (hand signed and numbered edition of 24 prints) titled Le Jardin.  We are hosting this giveaway on our facebook, and would love you to join us!  However, if you don't have a facebook account, we are more than happy for you to enter here.  To enter, please leave a comment here, with why you like this design, and that's it.  Of course, we are more than happy if you'd like to share the competition with anyone you think might love to win this print too.   Entires close Sunday midnight 24th March. Winner announced on Monday 25th.  Good luck, and have a super weekend all! And yep - open to everyone, worldwide! 

le jardin noir

A new series for us, and a sneak peek! The series is titled "Le Jardin Noir" and almost ready for release in its entirety.  More from us on this soon. Hope you're all well, thanks for stopping by, we love your comments! 

press close together

Press Close Together. A new piece whose title comes from late Latin condensatio(n-), from condensare 'press close together'.  Rather than call it "rain" which is the inspiration for the work, we like the latin meaning as it's not only relevant in a literal way, but goes a little further.  Created from painted shapes in gouache on paper and assembled like so! 

Press Close Together - inaluxe

inaluxe featured in the SMH Spectrum

We were chuffed when contacted by Alexia Biggs from the Sydney Morning Herald about featuring our print Composition I in the Spectrum edition of the newspaper.  The feature ran on the Saturday the 16th of February.  We would have shared it sooner, but we had to wait for it to arrive in the mail, all the way from Sydney.  We really appreciate the support, and absolutely love the feature. 

Luna + Sol

When we first created Luna, we called her "hello cutie!" because it was the first thing that came out.  Very quickly we realised she was Luna, and then of course, we felt there needed to be a Sol, so we created her too. Our two latest best friends! Both available in our store.

 Sol - inaluxe

Luna - inaluxe