Paper by 53 introduces Mix, a community for sharing digital sketches & creations (plus a Pencil giveaway!)

Paper by FiftyThree is getting a whole lot more social today as the popular sketching app for iPad launches Mix, a community platform for sharing creations made in Paper. Mix allows users to share and view other sketches made in Paper on the web or right in the app.

With Mix, Paper uses can follow other creators, adding sketches to your own journal, view iterations of sketches, “star” ideas for viewing in a collection, and open sketches on the web. Probably the best feature of Mix is being able to use someone else’s sketch for inspiration for your own. You can jump right into a sketch found on Mix and add your own ideas and creations.

As part of the debut of Mix, 9to5Mac and FiftyThree will be giving away two Pencils by FiftyThree, the company’s stylus made specifically for Paper for iPad with surface pressure detection coming with iOS 8, blending, erasing, and palm rejection. Read more about Mix in Paper by FiftyThree and how to enter the giveaway below.

If you have ever used Paper to try and sketch out something on the iPad but couldn’t decide where to start on a blank canvas, the content shared on Mix, the new community within Paper, will be huge for you.

You can mark sketches shared by others as your favorites for inspiration later and even save them (sometimes from various iterations of the sketch) to your own journal for adding to and making into your own.

All of the additions from Mix come at the swipe of a finger in Paper. To access the Mix community, your own portfolio of shared content, and your favorites from others, simply swipe down on the journal view you’re already used to seeing in Paper. When you finish up in Mix, pinch out of whichever view you’re in like your existing sketch journals and swipe right back down to your own sketches.

The addition to Paper makes the app feel like much less of a silo and much more robust.

Mix also has a huge web presence.

Through the Mix web portal at mix.fiftythree.com, Paper users can follow various channels for content including Learn, Sketch, Play, Write, Design, and Think. You can also view your own sketches from your Mix profile via the website.

In the time I’ve spent browsing the creations on Mix, I’ve discovered a ton of ways to use Paper that I haven’t previously imagined.

Mix is launching today with an invite system for Paper users to ensure the community starts off without any turbulence, and FiftyThree will steadily add new members over the coming weeks.

Paper by FiftyThree is available for iPad users free on the App Store with unlockable content within the app. Mix will be available as a free community for Paper users on the web and in the app as it rolls out.

As for the Pencil stylus giveaway from 9to5Mac and FiftyThree (just in time for its new feature addition), simply share this story over Twitter or Facebook to enter, and two winners will be chosen at random and notified on Friday, September 19th. Good luck and enjoy creating!