Personal Projects
Sometimes I'm the client.
Every so often, I take time to create purely for myself—projects that let me follow my curiosity wherever it leads. These projects—whether inventing a card game, creating a vintage-inspired line of greeting cards, designing labels for cider from my apple orchard, or painting detailed portraits of food—allow me to explore ideas that might never surface in my client work. They offer a creative freedom that’s deeply personal and refreshingly unfiltered, yet they still draw on the same care, craft, and discipline I bring to every professional assignment.
In these moments, I’m reminded of why I fell in love with design in the first place: the joy of making something simply because it feels right.
Purgatory
One night while playing cards with friends, I became intrigued by the idea of inventing an entirely new game. I started with the popular trick-taking format of Bridge and Hearts, made an array of game-altering changes, and then wrapped it into the eternal theme of Heaven vs. Hell, which pitted two celestial teams in an epic race to collect the most “souls.” Thus was born Purgatory, The Card Game You’ll Play Forever.
The graphics were carefully designed to attract players young and old, and the rules crafted to be understood by players at every skill level.
Hudson Valley art
In 2012, after having spent many decades in New York City and the surrounding suburbs, I moved full-time to the Hudson Valley, about 90 minutes north of Manhattan. Blessed with tremendous natural beauty and historic wonders, I decided to channel my love for the region into an art project by turning many of its local attractions into illustrations inspired by early 20th century travel posters.
It's a work in progress, and several of my illustrations are available as notecards and sold locally.
Testimonial Gateway
Smiley Memorial Tower
Mohonk Mountain House
Lavery Phillips Orchard
One of the nice things about living where I do is that I'm in the heart of New York's apple-growing region. The year after I moved here full-time, my partner and I purchased an adjacent lot with a seriously neglected 65-tree orchard, which we began to restore with a lot of hard work.
Soon, we began harvesting the apples, and every year since we’ve produced a line of ciders (fresh and hard), pies, and sauces that we share with friends, family, and clients of the studio.
Each year I've designed new labels for those items, a few of which are shown here, and in 2016 I created a weathervane featuring our logo.
Fine art
About a dozen years ago I rediscovered my paintbox from college and was surprised to find that the paint tubes were still fresh and ready for use. What started with a small painting of peas and carrots turned into an enriching (and occasionally profitable) niche: realistic portraits of food, using the Old Master style I’d studied years earlier.
My first solo show, A Painter's Dozen (2014), featured twelve paintings of baked goods. That eventually led to a series of pieces portraying bagels (2015), and later, Breakfast of Champions (2017). In a nod to Thomas Kinkade, a friend dubbed me “The Painter of Carbs.”
Paintings of other comestibles followed, many commissioned works. I’m currently immersed in a long-term project—creating one hundred 7" x 5" food paintings for a future show.
My paintings can be viewed at budlaveryart.com
