Papercutting Tools

[eller]

In case anyone is curious: these are my most important papercutting tools.



In this picture:
- large scissors (for long cuts; actually the professional thing because hey, Fiskars is a ridiculously expensive brand but they do make great scissors)
- small papercutting scissors (actually also the professional thing; these ones are from "ideen mit herz")
- utility knife with snap-off blade (the most important tool ever: cheap, reliable, irreplaceable)
- tiny paper scalpel thingy (No idea which brand this one is, but it's magic: I got it in an Advent calendar a few years ago, regularly use it since then, and the blade shows no sign of wear at all.)
- black paper: professional papercutting paper. Because I'm not a professional, I tore it, which is something I often do with paper.
- white paper: super-cheap note paper that I use for my practice papercuts. It's not good paper, but it somehow works.

I'm showing a close-up of the sharp things because the tips are kind of important.



NOT in these pictures:
- Japanese swivel knife which I have somehow misplaced. (It has to be somewhere in my suitcase, I guess.)
- can of spray glue
- cutting mat, because I don't own one yet. (You may think it's kind of important to have one, but so far, I've simply used scrap paper and the back of watercolor pads. I'm planning to buy one next week, though.)
- like, twenty scissors I can't use for various reasons. (I draw and write with my left, which is why well-meaning people assume I'm left-handed and keep gifting me scissors intended for use with the left hand... Except, oops, I'm actually mixed-handed, and I use almost all tools with the right, including scissors and knives. Also, yes, I usually hide that because of the serious stigma, so ending up with wrong scissors is partly my own fault for "passing" as lefthanded, which is also a social problem but less of one. Of the tools shown here, I'd only use the smallest scalpel, which feels like a pen in my hand, with my left!)
- lifetime supply of different papers. LOL

Comments

[yhlee]

This is seriously cool, thank you!

My mom taught herself to write left-handed despite being right-handed as a child solely because of "what if someone cuts off my right hand and I have to switch, best to be prepared." Which says a lot about my mom right there...(She also usually writes right-handed, though.)

[eller]

I like art supplies, so, why not post them? Turns out nice scissors and decent paper actually make a difference when it comes to the result, who would have thought? XD

Wow, I've never seriously considered the possibility of someone cutting off my hand... O_O I just taught myself to draw with both hands independently at the same time. Apparently, being able to do that is generally considered a symptom of neurological damage (also linked with, unsurprisingly, language difficulties - which is why mixed-handedness is typically considered a learning disability in its own right, and which is also why people go to great lengths to hide it), but also, mixed-handedness is very useful for some specific activities. For example, I'm very good at ripping paper! YAY weird niche skills! XDDDD

[yhlee]

I didn't realize it was a symptom of anything! I'm firmly right-handed - after my mom told me that story, I attempted briefly to learn to write left-handed and gave up after a couple days because LAZY. OTOH...I play viola, where the left hand is MORE difficult/requires more dexterity, and piano (depends on the piece, but...). For me this is just standard musical training than any natural ability to use my off/left hand.

The thing that briefly caused trouble for me is that I'm left-eye dominant, which I discovered taking riflery. I was the only person to miss a (large) target SHEET entirely the first round, because I was sighting through my left eye and not the right eye (what the rifle scope was designed for), so of course it threw my angle off so badly that...yeah. I'm impressed the instructor immediately diagnosed the problem, but then he was a US Marine rifle instructor so I'm guessing he'd just seen every possible problem.

[eller]

Oh, the research on this is actually quite fascinating, for example:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393298000396?via%3Dihub

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20100759/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393207003296?casa_token=jxUpSMX-IJsAAAAA:007_P9McNukyGQoPw4CHlzb4rd_m68vXkQaBsha9SncqiGcgSi0Z7RFRNy9Kow3EaucEkg#bib22

The problem is that these studies are read by people who don't know how to read studies, and who then inevitably conclude that mixed-handed people are always!stupid. This kind of prejudice typically causes more real-life problems to the afflicted (as in: no-one would knowingly hire a mixed-handed person because, after all, you don't want stupid employees) than their actual neurodivergence... As usual. XD So, yeah, if you can draw a rose with one hand while simultaneously drawing a tulip with the other, it's a lot safer to keep that to yourself.

[eller]

...and I almost forgot one of the most fun papers on this:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17201516/

Chess players, apparently, are much more likely to be mixed-handed than the rest of the population. (And it makes sense because chess is pur visuo-spatial thinking after all...) Yeah, fun research.