Cody Goodin - The artistic and spiritual journey of Cody Goodin

Here are a few more of the sea goblins after they have been baked.  See my earlier post for more details on the how and whys. This is number five. Here is number six and also the up close shot below. The last one is made in a slightly larger shell and you can see that he is trying to fit himself inside the shell. I will try and post the finished results tomorrow.  I still need to do the final stain coat on them all.

In keeping with my self imposed posting at least once a week, here are some works in the loop.  I like to use that term too sometimes.  These guys are sea goblins.  These three were my first set to be sculpted and I have four more in the oven curing as I write this.  They are all OOAK polymer clay sculpts in a sea shell.  The eyes are either fresh water pearls that have been dyed or glass eyes.  I know these are all pearl eyes here. I love doing these guys as I am trying to explore the theme of enclosures or containers that these guys live in at least for the moment.  They are opportunists of sorts and inhabit anything they decide is theirs. I got onto more of the sea goblins because I am involved in an Under the Sea Swap on another blog site.  So, one of the seven will be going to my swap partner.  In case she sees this she will not know until it arrives on her doorstep which one she is getting. It is interesting how one acquires things like shells.  You would think a walk along the...

Well, I got the second angel in my series roughed out today.  I have decided on the themes so far.  The one in the previous post is the angel of twilight and this one pictured here will be the angel of decay.  He will be layered with fabrics, paper and bark.  I am not sure if I will add anything else yet.  These are turning out to be rather cathartic in some way.  I am not sure why yet.  But, that is what the creative process does to me.  Until the next installment adieu .

OK , there are times when I like to do something a bit darker and more serious.  So, these are some WIP pictures of a series I am working called tentatively "Dark Angels Among Us".  Of course that may change.  As with most of my original intentions they tend to assume a life of their own once I begin them.  These are canvas, paper and wood panels that I then apply a decorative textured paper to the surface.  Then I apply a bit of Liquitex Flexible modeling paste around the edges for a bit of texture and to seal the edges of the paper.  The panel on the left is what I start with. Next I begin building the figure out of paper clay.  I am planning on the figure to then be layered with papers and fabrics saturated with molding paste and heavy gel mediums.  This will allow me to give the figure some movement and also I like that not all of the extremities are visible . Here you can see a closer view of the figure.  I purposely keep it a little rough as a lot of the arms and l...

Here is the challenge piece I made for the joint meeting of River City Dollmakers and the Indy Dollmakers clubs.  The idea behind the challenge was to create a doll or figure based on a fortune we received in a fortune cookie.  We had an entire year to get this done.  Of course I waited until the week of the meeting to make mine.  My fortune for this piece was "Peace begins with a smile."  But, my title was "Peace begins with a smile or does it?"   Since I made a goblin to portray my idea, he is holding the original fortune in his right hand while holding a fortune cookie bomb in the left behind his back.  They are like stink bombs.  That is the trickster way with these guys.  He originally had a hat topper but, it went missing and I suppose he wasn't liking that all that much. This first picture is a front view. Here is a side view so you can see him holding the bomb.  This goblin was created using the technique of the wire wrapped armature method I taught at A...

This is part two of my AFIC posts.   The pictures here are from the two half day sessions of Mediums Make the Art Go Round class.  I gave a whirlwind tour of acrylic mediums for fiber and doll artists.  The students had fun learning how to create fake rust, stone and do crackle and sculpture work using acrylic mediums and paper. Here are some finished samples. Me demoing the process of spackling with molding paste. More samples from the class. Still more samples. Another look at a students work.  If you or your art group wishes to learn about these fun mediums and how to use them in your art?  I am available to teach this class and many others.  Just drop me a line for more information.

Hi my wonderful artsy friends out there.  I am back from AFIC and rested up a bit.  I wanted to share some photos of the projects my students worked on while in my classes.  First up are the projects from my Wire, Myth and Magic class. This class employed the use of a wire armature wrapped with layers of cotton batting, muslin and decorative papers.  This was attached to a based of the students choosing.  A variety of heads, hands and feet were also use to create their sculptures.  Next they were painted and embellished .  Aren't they all awesome.  I had the best students in my classes. This piece above is by Mary.  She started with a bone and created this multi armed deityesque figure.   Here is Libby's recession warrior.  She decoupaged newspaper headlines on the body and used sliced up credit cards as part of her embellishments. Here we have Joyce's piece.   She was going for the decay of society.  I new Joyce from the yahoo Artdollz group.  She is such a sweetie...

I am having a great time here in Columbus Ohio at AFIC.  I just finished teaching my two day class and the students did outstanding work.  I will post some pics later of their dolls.  Here are my two pieces I had been working on before I left for the exhibits.  The first one is the stone caster goblin.  He is painted with texture mediums and paint to give him a stone like texture. This is Goblin Boy Riding a Sled.  He was the paper clay head you saw in an earlier post.  He turned out well and unfortunately I couldn't photograph him at a good angel.  But, you can get an idea.  I loved how he turn ed  Well until next time.