Introducing DrawnTogether a SXSW Innovation Award finalist in the Social Media Category. Focused on sparking creativity through collaborative art creation, DrawnTogether is an art marking social media app for mobile and tablet devices from Toronto app producer Pop Sandbox.

The app’s co-creators Tristan Tiggeloven (Producer) and Andrea Nesbitt (Lead Graphic Designer and Featured Artist) were onsite at SXSW demonstating the app and welcomed visitors to stop by and learn how it works.

Toronto, Ont., Canada) – Creativity, community and inspiration collide with the new DrawnTogether app, a collaborative drawing social media platform that challenges the bounds of the imagination, inspiring users to create surprising and incredible works of art regardless of their skill level. Produced by Toronto developer Pop Sandbox and supported by Canada Media Fund, the app is now available for download globally on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices.

Pop Sandbox commissioned a roster of 45 talented emerging and established Canadian digital artists to create art for the app, building a database of professionally drawn art across a variety of styles and aesthetics for users to engage with. Visit drawntogetherapp.com/featured-artists for the full list of the DrawnTogether featured artists and a selection of their art.

How DrawnTogether works:

DrawnTogether is a social media platform centred on inspiring creativity through collaborative art creation. Users begin by choosing a section (top, middle or bottom) and from a selection of starting template lines, and then draw an image. The starting lines enable artists to seamlessly join their drawing with two additional drawings by other users to produce a surprising, yet cohesive and sometimes strange, work of art.  Final drawings comprise a total of three sections and all collaborating artists are automatically tagged on artworks.

Resulting artworks are jointly owned by and credited to the contributing artists, who are able to export the artwork from the app to share in their portfolios, on social media and more. Art can be left as a black and white sketch, coloured in using the app, exported to continue creating with design software, or printed and coloured in using traditional art supplies like paint or markers.

DrawnTogether is inspired by the popular 1920s surrealist drawing game Exquisite Corpse (Cadavre Exquis) created by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert and Yves Tanguy, where three to four participants each take a turn drawing on a piece of paper, folding the paper over to hide their contribution leaving just a few lines visible, before passing it on to the next artist. The paper is then unfolded, revealing an artwork that is wholly unexpected. Notable fans of Exquisite Corpse include artists Frida Khalo, Lucienne Bloch and Salvador Dalí. Today, the game is still widely popular among the artist community and art lovers alike as it enables experimentation and stimulates creativity through collaboration, and most importantly, is a lot of fun.

DrawnTogether transforms this beloved parlour game into digital format, enabling users to play with people all over the world and share their creations with a community of art lovers.

“As an artist, Exquisite Corpse has long been a favourite game to play with friends and family,” said Andrea Nesbitt, DrawnTogether’s lead graphic designer and featured artist. “Collaborating with a diverse range of artistic styles and subject matter in-app has sparked new inspiration and fueled greater creativity in my art.”

“There is a global community of art enthusiasts who enjoy creating exquisite corpses, and through DrawnTogether, we can eliminate distance as a barrier to participation and collaboration,” said Tristan Tiggeloven, Producer at Pop Sandbox for DrawnTogether. “The app will serve as a creative outlet to inspire, challenge and connect artists of all skill levels from the novice to the expert. With DrawnTogether everyone is an artist and everyone can make really cool art.”

Additional DrawnTogether Features

Profiles: Users have the option to draw their profile picture as well as link to another social media account, personal website and email in their profile, enabling artists and content creators to expand their fan base and direct to a portfolio of other artwork.

User interactions: follow other users, like artworks, bookmark favourite drawings to view again or send animated reactions to another user via the gift icon on their profile page.

The home feed offers personalized and curated content based on artists followed, the latest drawings created by featured artists and trending art.

Advanced search functions enable exploration by user, in-app trends, featured artists and new art.

Colouring mode offers an array of drawing tools including different brush sizes, an opacity slider, colour palettes and layers.  A standard colour palette is always available and each week a new colour palette is released and is free to use for the week. Weekly colour palettes can be unlocked permanently with in-game currency.

Drawing tools can be switched from right hand to left hand orientation to accommodate the dominant hand of the artist.

In-app currency is earned simply by engaging with the app. Extra currency can be earned by watching advertisements.  It can also be purchased. Users are offered 10 randomly selected sections to collaborate with (five for each missing section — top, middle or bottom) or in-game currency unlocks preferred sections from favourite artists. Releasing in an upcoming update, subscriptions will enable users to remove advertisements, receive bonus in-app currency, and unlock all available art for collaboration. Also coming in an update, the in-app store will also enable users to print their art on a variety of objects to create original art posters, funky coffee mugs, one-of-a-kind t-shirts and more.

Download the app from the App Store or Google Play. For more information, visit www.drawntogetherapp.com

About Pop Sandbox

Pop Sandbox is an award-winning multimedia production company celebrating more than a decade of operation. A boutique operation centred on innovative storytelling across platforms, Pop Sandbox brings together a diverse group of top practitioners from a variety of disciplines into a creative environment that fosters innovation in both content and form, resulting in a strong track record of ground-breaking properties with a specialty in non-fiction

Pop Sandbox has been showcased at the Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, Games for Change, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Hot Docs, the Tokyo Game Show, Indiecade East and PAX East among many others.

For more information, visit https://popsandbox.com