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The ULTIMATE shading technique: a Zentangle®-Inspired Tile made as a mini 3D shadow box! I have an incredible fascination for shadow boxes, how they look so dimensional. In architectural school, all the dioramas and architectural models fell to me, I just had a thing for constructing models using paper.

Constructing a shadow-box tile (or a shadow-tile) is not difficult, and I had a ton of fun making it. The drawing of the elements took about the same time it would have taken me to create a regular tile, plus added the time to cut the parts and assemble the tile. The assembly took a little bit of planning, some things worked, others didn't, but I came up with a set of rules that will work better for next time.

Here you see a picture of the tile almost ready, just missing the top frame and a few of the smaller elements.

I'm still totally addicted to gems, so the center element has an aquafleur topped with a purple gem.

(To learn how to create these beautiful Gems, get my ebook here).

Here is the tile seen sideways, you can see that it is 3-dimensional:

The tile measures 4x4inches, and is 1/4 inch thick.

Even though it was that thick, I managed to fit it into a regular photo frame:

And here is another close-up in the frame:

All in all, an EXTREMELY enjoyable process! I am certainly going to make more of these. The final objects FEELS like a tile, it's substantial and wonderful.