Etydhv

I typeset my entire document inside a single tikzpicture, meaning that blocks of text in my document are represented by path node...;. But without using additional tikzpicture environment it gets complicated when a drawing has to be inserted into the document. Using additional tikzpicture, however, would create vertical spacing which is hard to deal with (and would ruin the frame box, aka background rectange around the tikzpiture). How do I get around this issue? Can we somehow use a scope and assign styles to it so that it can "mimic" tikzpicture? I need to be able to position and scale entire drawing easily, instead of dealing with each path of the drawing separately (to adjust it to the text above). It would also create problems with positioning text following the drawing, since the text needs to be aligned to something: you can't align nodes to paths which aren't nodes, and the drawing consists mostly of paths which aren't nodes (it would've been easy to position the text to a container of the drawing instead, but there's no such container).

documentclassstandalone
usepackagetikz
usetikzlibrarycalc
begindocument
 begintikzpicture
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm](n1)This is sentence 1. This is sentence 2. This is sentence 3.;
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm]at(n1.south west)[2+2=4];

 % following drawing should behave as a picture
 % so that it can be easily moved and scaled
 path node[anchor=north west](t1)DRAWING TITLE;
 path[draw,radius=30pt]($(t1.south)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(-15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,line width=1pt]($(t1.south)+(0,0)+(0,-30pt)$)--($(t1.south)+(0,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path[draw]($(t1.south)+(-10pt,-15pt)+(0,-30pt)$)rectangle($(t1.south)+(10pt,-5pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path node[font=tiny]at($(t1.south)+(0,-40pt)$)text;
 endtikzpicture
enddocument

Following semi-works, but there are additional problems not highlighted in the output: (1) additional vertical spacing (which is fully under control if EVERYTHING is inside a single tikzpicture) due to second tikzpicture environment, (2) use of varwidth environment and (as a result) clipping of the nodes (on the right side).

documentclass[varwidth=50mm]standalone
usepackagetikz
usetikzlibrarycalc
begindocument
 begintikzpicture
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm](n1)This is sentence 1. This is sentence 2. This is sentence 3.;
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm]at(n1.south west)[2+2=4];
 endtikzpicturepar
 begintikzpicture[text width=50mm,align=center]
 path node[anchor=north west](t1)DRAWING TITLE;
 path[draw,radius=30pt]($(t1.south)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(-15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,line width=1pt]($(t1.south)+(0,0)+(0,-30pt)$)--($(t1.south)+(0,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path[draw]($(t1.south)+(-10pt,-15pt)+(0,-30pt)$)rectangle($(t1.south)+(10pt,-5pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path node[font=tiny]at($(t1.south)+(0,-40pt)$)text;
 endtikzpicture
enddocument

Could you use a scope environment with the local bounding box option?

documentclassstandalone
usepackagetikz
usetikzlibrarycalc
begindocument
 begintikzpicture
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm](n1)This is sentence 1. This is sentence 2. This is sentence 3.;
 path node[anchor=north west,text width=50mm]at(n1.south west)[2+2=4];

 % following drawing should behave as a picture
 % so that it can be easily moved and scaled
 beginscope[
 shift=(0,-3),
 scale=0.7,
 local bounding box=smiley
 ]
 path node[anchor=north west](t1)DRAWING TITLE;
 path[draw,radius=30pt]($(t1.south)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(-15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,radius=5pt]($(t1.south)+(15pt,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$)circle;
 path[draw,line width=1pt]($(t1.south)+(0,0)+(0,-30pt)$)--($(t1.south)+(0,10pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path[draw]($(t1.south)+(-10pt,-15pt)+(0,-30pt)$)rectangle($(t1.south)+(10pt,-5pt)+(0,-30pt)$);
 path node[font=tiny]at($(t1.south)+(0,-40pt)$)text;
 endscope

 draw [red] (smiley.north west) to[bend left] (smiley.north east);

 node [right] at (smiley.east) foo;
 endtikzpicture
enddocument