Firstly, notice the hair? He was known for always having his hair totally slicked back in a Fonzie-esque way. He actually behaved a lot like a chicano, ghetto fonzie. very slick, funny, charming and nice but apparently also used to get into a lot of fights with his clique.that being said... this is
Not technically a stencil (actually a kind of tracing was involved so it still feels like semi-art to me...) but I felt like I needed to put it up for people to see.
I got the idea for this painting back in oct. when I heard about his death (he drowned in Tracy saving his little brother's life....and apparently his body wasn't found for a few days....horrific and terribly sad) but I didn't get around to actually painting it until the end of april when I realized that what would have been his birthday was fast approaching, and that it would be the day after mother's day. I felt like I needed to give something to his parents to show just how awesome and special a kid he was. He was really, truely one of the nicest people I've ever met (he ironically said to me that life was too short to have beef with people- essentially, it's pointless to be mad or upset with people because life's too short- which is an extremely insightful outlook for such a young kid surrounded by so much violence and entrenched in the gang culture of the area to have. even though he wasinvolved in that lifestyle, he never let it sway his kindness and humor towards other people- though i don't really know how those two things could co-exist, but apparently they did)
anyway, ramble-hands. I finished this actually this morning, then met with Carlos Mendez (one of daniel's friends, and actually the first student to speak with me at ECP) after school to give him the painting so that he could deliver it to Daniel's parents, as I have never met them.
Even though it looks really simple, it actually took a long time to complete since I'm such a fucking perfectionist.
Hopefully his family will appreciate it.
They're having a memorial for his birthday on saturday but that's matt and my 8 year anniversary. (i know. dude.)
I'll post the one I did of dom a few years ago as well so that you can see the original inspiration, but I wanna leave this one up of him just for a little bit.
