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Set painter and avid sketcher, Keni Davis was bitten by the Hollywood bug in 1977. But it wasn’t the movie stars that inspired him to grab pen and paper—it was the action behind the scenes. “I wanted to keep a record of all the interesting things I saw on the set, but photography was prohibited on the lots, so I started to take a sketchbook wherever I went. For years I mostly used pen and ink, then in 2001, when I was working on the movie 8 Mile in Detroit, I decided to try something a little different. I put together a small watercolor kit and over the course of my brief stay there, I completed 20 paintings. Since then I’ve worked primarily in watercolor and done hundreds of ‘Hollywood Backlots’ sketches.”

Inspired by an interesting building in Los Angeles, a patron in a local coffee shop or the replica of a European street on a Hollywood back lot, Keni usually completes one watercolor sketch a day. “Working at Universal Studios in the ‘80s helped me improve my sketching skills and increase my speed. The studio covers 400 acres, and during my 45 minute lunch break, I would ride my bicycle from the stages I was working to my favorite place to sketch: the back lots designed to look like another place or time. My routine went something like this: five minutes to bike to the back lot, five minutes to read my Bible, 10 minutes to eat lunch, 20 minutes to sketch, then five minutes to bike back to the stages. At first it took me two visits to a site to complete a sketch, but eventually I could finish one in a single 20-minute sitting.

“When I began adding watercolor to my sketches, I had to adjust my technique a bit. I now spend approximately 10 minutes sketching with pen and ink and the remainder of my lunch period painting. Of course, many, many years of practice went into making that simple 10-minute painting.”

For his black-and white sketches, Keni uses a sepia, fine-point Sharpie pen on Strathmore 5.5”x8.5”, 60-lb., spiral-bound sketchpads. For his watercolor sketches, he starts by drawing with a Rotring fine-point sketch pen loaded with non-clogging, Daler-Rowney sepia acrylic ink on Canson Montval 140-lb., cold-pressed pads. He buys the 9x12-inch pads and tears the pages in half (he likes the deckle edges that it produces) to create 6x9-inch sketches. For larger sketches, he prefers Arches 140-lb cold-pressed paper. Keni uses a Winsor & Newton Cotman kit, but he removes the pan colors and replaces them with Winsor & Newton tube colors. He also keeps a small damp sponge inside the kit to keep the colors from drying up when not in use. For his brushes, Keni prefers sable/synthetic blends. “ They’re also a little more firm, more rugged than pure sable, which makes them better able to handle my sometimes aggressive style of painting.”

Keni saye he likes to sketch with watercolor for many of the same reasons that ewe all like to paint in watercolor: it’s unpredictable. “Watercolor has a way of developing its won personality. When I drop colors on paper, I’m never sure what the final outcome will be. Watercolor allows me to make my statement, then demands that I step back and await its reply. I like that. When I sketch, I try to develop my technical skills—my understanding of perspective, anatomy, color theory, etc. But far beyond that, I try to leave a piece of my soul on the page. My watercolor sketches are personal records of how I’ve lived my life. When I look back through an old sketchbook, I can remember conversations, experiences and other details that otherwise would have been forgotten.”

Do work in public as often as possible.

“It’s a great confidence builder to have people openly admire your efforts as you sketch,” Keni says. “On those rare instances when someone offers criticism, refuse to be offended: the experience will help you grow.”

Don’t worry about making mistakes.

“I strongly urge you to work in pen and ink, not pencil,” says Keni. “Initially you may struggle with not being able to make corrections or undo your work. You may even tempted to tear a page out of your book because the sketch didn’t work out exactly as you expected. But if you’re bold in your approach and not overly concerned about little details that don’t measure up to your expectations, you’ll find that as you continue to work in your sketchbook, you’ll look back on earlier pages and discover you’ve made great progress.”

Inspired by the behind-the-scenes action on movie sets, Keni has completed hundreds of sketches for his “Hollywood Backlots” series.