This woodcut came about because of a story related through the Baren Forum on Woodblock Printmaking. Phil Bivins, one of the members in the early days of the forum, described his coworker's reaction to his very first attempt at a woodblock print. The subject was a Chinese lion, but Phil's colleague told him it "looked like a dog with its ass on fire."

Funny though that was, I decided Phil could probably use a more sympathetic opinion, so — for the sake of comparison — I created a print in which a dog's ass really was on fire. Just an act of printmakerly bon homme. Rest assured that no actual canines were immolated in the creation of this print.

[detail enlargement]