To Dream the Impossible Dream

Happy September all!
I know I haven't finished telling you about my trip yet, but I wanted to let you know about this challenge I am doing this month.
Recently, I've been reading No Plot? No Problem!. This book is about how to write a novel in a month. (No I'm not writing a novel . . . yet. )
It got me thinking though, if you can write a decent length novel in a month, a seemingly impossible task, what else could you accomplish in a month?
Which led me to my art challenge for September. In the next month, I've promised to challenge myself to do something seemingly impossible that moves me forward in my art career. The only rules? I couldn't start drawing until September 1st, and everything needs to be done and posted here by September 30th. I want it to be something different then I usually do, yet something that will strengthen my portfolio. I  want to do 10-15 portfolio pieces (so scary seeing it in print!) but would be happy with any strong pieces that come out of this challenge. I don't want to give anything away yet, but I'm pretty excited about some of the ideas I've come up with.
However, I've already started procrastinating! And I'm only on day 3 of the challenge. (I mean, this was supposed to start the 1st, and here I am, only telling you about it now!) When I realized I was simply scared to start, I emailed my wonderfully talented friend Olivia (see her work here), who is doing this challenge with me! It seems that we are both struggling a bit already, but it helps to know someone else is doing this with me, and also helps hold me accountable to someone other than myself, and that looming deadline. I think just telling her, "I'm scared!" helped me make the first scribble of an idea on paper.
Now I am also posting it here, so you can all hold me accountable too. Even though it's the 3rd already, you can join too! Pick something seemingly impossible to do, and get it done! Let me know what you are planning to do in the comments and we can all help each other with this challenge. Of course, since I am telling you about this late, you can also just simply enjoy our crazy journey so keep looking for mine and Olivia's updates! I'll be sure to post everything both here and on my Facebook page so you can't miss it.
(No worries. I will take some breaks from feverishly drawing to inspire you with beautiful pictures of the California coast!)
This month is all about challenging yourself and getting outside of your comfort zone. What will you do?

A little motivation from our friend the hedgehog. Time to get to work!

Pandas, Pandas, Pandas Everywhere! (and a hippo)

One of the things we did often in school was draw from life. Unfortunately, I've fallen out of this habit a bit since then. However I have decided as a New Year's Resolution to do more drawing from life.

Therefore, the other night I was sitting on my bed looking at my twin sister's bed. She LOVES pandas (and that is an understatement.) I think she has about twelve pandas at the end of her bed, all in a pile.
So I pulled out my sketchbook and a pen and drew them. (there is also a hippo, a tiger and some sort of brain cell there. yeah she's a science nerd too)

"my sister has a lot of pandas. sometimes it's hard to tell where one begins and another ends"

This was a fun ten (maybe fifteen?) minute drawing. It is just a inky pen drawing. I thought people may like to see some informal art, as opposed to the finishes I keep posting. Hope you like the pandas!