The Drafting Table

Designing Digital Experiences
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Creative Portfolio · 06

Illustration & Visual Design

Creative Work

The same eye for composition, proportion, and detail that drives the UX work, expressed in watercolor and sugar.

Watercolor of a golden autumn leaf covered in water droplets.
Mediums
Watercolor, cake and sugar art
Watercolor
7+ years
Cake Design
35+ years, weddings to competition
Recognition
Silver Medalist, Pastry Arts
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Watercolors

Watercolor rewards the same discipline that UX work requires: knowing when to stop. Every mark is committed. There are no undo steps. The medium demands decisions made with confidence and lived with completely, which turns out to be good practice for design.

Watercolor of a white cottage with a brick chimney and dark roof on a green hillside.
Original Watercolor
Watercolor of purple lilacs in a turquoise pitcher resting on a stack of old books.
Original Watercolor
Framed watercolor of rolling green hills with a winding road, red poppies, and a distant farmhouse.
Original Watercolor
Framed watercolor of pale blue irises.
Original Watercolor
Framed watercolor of a Tuscan landscape with sunflower fields, a farmhouse, and cypress trees.
Original Watercolor
Watercolor of a golden autumn leaf covered in water droplets.
Original Watercolor
Watercolor of silhouetted trees reflected in still water under a pale yellow sky.
Original Watercolor
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Cake & Pastry Design

35+ years of professional pastry work, from competitive showpieces to wedding cakes designed around a couple's story. Every piece began the way any design project does: a client conversation, a set of constraints, and a vision that had to be translated from concept into something real and beautiful, under pressure.

From sketch to cake

Every cake started as a drawing. The sketch captured the client's vision and the structural decisions; the finished cake had to deliver on both.

Pencil sketch of a three-tier wedding cake with sugar roses and a heart topper, annotated with design notes.
The finished three-tier cake from the sketch, decorated with cascading yellow, pink, and peach sugar roses.

Selected cakes

Four-tier white wedding cake with black damask patterns, black ribbon bands, and red flowers.
Wedding Cake Design
Three-tier white wedding cake with textured piping and cascading burgundy lilies and greenery.
Wedding Cake Design
Tiered buttercream cake with a bunting banner, topped with yellow lilies and white daisies.
Wedding Cake Design
Three-tier lime green cake decorated with white daisies and black and white striped ribbon.
Wedding Cake Design
Three-tier white cake with black scroll designs, a red ribbon band, and red gerbera daisies.
Wedding Cake Design
Two-tier baby shower cake with blue and green polka dots, rubber ducks, a ribbon bow, and a plaque reading Welcome Baby Boy.
Baby Shower Design
Green birthday cake with pink bows, tropical sugar flowers, and a Happy Birthday plaque.
Birthday Cake Design
Stacked white cake with purple, lime green, and pink ribbon bows and a glass topper.
Birthday Cake Design
Silhouette competition display from 1992: a centerpiece of domed towers on red draped fabric, surrounded by trays of pastries.
Silhouette Competition · 1992

Want to see more cakes? Head over to The Pastry Kitchen's website to see what else I've made.

Visit thepastrykitchen.net
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Same Discipline. Different Medium.

The craft changes. The process doesn't. Understand what's being asked for. Translate it. Execute it without excuses.

Whether the canvas is watercolor paper, a tiered cake, or a Figma file, the work starts the same way: a conversation, a set of constraints, and a vision that belongs to someone else and has to be made real with precision. What 35 years of creative practice taught me is that the discipline of craft doesn't transfer. It already is the discipline. UX design wasn't a career change. It was a vocabulary change.