Shaving tangles

Shaving: removing a small amount or a (thin) slice from the original form.

Almost any tangle you'd care to draw can be changed considerably by shaving it, but I find this idea works best with tangles that are composed of lines, like Emingle at the top here, rather than tangles that already come with black areas. 

I introduced shaved square grids here. Here's an example of a simple square grid (albeit curvy), shaved on two sides of the squares, with added Pearlz:

I introduced shaved Paradox here. Below are tiles done at a workshop I gave.

This technique can be used with lots of other tangles. Sometimes I shave inside the tangle, sometimes outside. Here are more possibilities:

The Zentangle-original tangle Stoic (a.k.a. Twile) shaved.
On the left, shaved at the permimeter of the squares.
On the right, shaved inside the squares.

All Boxed Up, shaved.
You'll need a wonky grid for this to work well.

Jalousie, shaved. Once I had that tilt happening
I decided to angle the "bubble on a stick" too.

Shaved 'Dillo

Shaved Bales, Cubine, and Knase

Shaved Tripoli, Dewd, Copada, and Paisley Boa.
Sometimes I like to make the shaved part look shiny,
or to add Pearlz in the shaved area.

It's also a great way to even things up if something you drew feels too wide, or to darken a tangle if you feel there's too much white (thanks to commenter Ragged Ray for that insight!).

Choose two or three tangles to shave, and see what happens!