2013 begins, and so does my daily art project

My daily art project for 2013 will be collage.  My rules are simple: every day, make a collage and put the date on it.  No other rules.

I'm on vacation for another week so I had to pack my supplies in advance.  What I brought along was a pack of library card catalog cards, a scissors and a glue stick.  I own approximately 3 million catalog cards, salvaged from two separate libraries that went to all-digital catalogs.  They have been excellent art materials for some time, and I thought they would be the best choice to start out my new project.

For one thing, they're relatively small so I could carry them along easily.  For another, they're relatively small so I wouldn't be faced with too much blank space to fill. 

Collage is a technique that I have yearned to do for many years but for some reason have had a hard time accomplishing.  Some big bundle of insecurity must be lurking a few layers down in my psyche, but I thought that attcking it head-on with a daily art project might be a good plan.  Even so, you don't conquer your insecurities all at once, so I am starting small.  I expect I may work larger as the year goes on, but not yet.  Unlike last year's daily art project, in which all the bits got assembled into a single piece for display, I don't expect to glue, sew, bind or otherwise combine the daily collages.

I bought myself a present in preparation for this project: a date stamp.  I think I may use it on the face of many if not all my collages, but if not, it will show up on the back

So here's my first collage:

Very simple:  a photo from the newspaper, plus a spiral cut from a second piece of paper.  And the date stamp.

It won't win any awards, I guess, but I'm just starting.  I'll have 364 others to practice with.