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:
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| 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. |
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| All Boxed Up, shaved. You'll need a wonky grid for this to work well. |
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| Jalousie, shaved. Once I had that tilt happening I decided to angle the "bubble on a stick" too. |
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| Shaved 'Dillo |
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| Shaved Bales, Cubine, and Knase |
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| 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!
