A fellow collector from Florida, found me in Vail and commissioned me to do this painting. I had considered calling it "tea and jell-o" - because those are the elements I used in the reference photograph. I found I could control the color of tea to get exactly what I was looking for, and I had a specific size and shape I sought for the ice cubes, which I could not find anywhere. Ice cube trays didn't produce the right shape, and none of the restaurants I visited had the right kind of ice either. Finally, a friend and I stumbled upon the idea of clear gelatin, and voila!  I also spent a fair bit of time on the wood itself. I mean the actual piece of wood. Sanding, staining, sanding again, and then varnishing with a half dozen layers of urethane gave me the rich, specular table top I was looking for.