Liquid Treat

Get your sketch on with Trace, a simple and beautiful yet incredibly useful iPad app created by the architects of the Morpholio Project. Free to download, the sketch utility allows users to instantly draw on top of imported images or background templates, layering comments or ideas to generate immediate, intelligent sketches that are easy to circulate. "Tracing over something is absolutely the foundation of the app," says co-creator Toru Hasegawa. "Layers of trace paper are not the same as 'layers' in Photoshop or other tools. Here, they are the stacking of ideas, as opposed to the organizing of files."

Watch an artist navigate a host of creative challenges in the documentary Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child, available on DVD March 19. Filmmaker Lisa Kirk Colburn follows Helnwein, a charismatic cross between Alice Cooper and Christopher Walken (with an Austrian accent), as he takes on the role of production designer for the Israeli Opera production of The Child Dreams. Helnwein arrives in Tel Aviv with a grand vision that he fights to preserve amid logistical limitations, opera star egos, Israeli labor laws that put the kibosh on child actors, and a stubborn yet brilliant lighting designer named Bambi. "I treat the staging like a canvas," says Helnwein of adapting his hazy-haunting figuration to a new art form, "but it's three-dimensional and everything moves."

How will we leave our mark? That's the question posed by the Blank Sheet Project, a project of Paris-based Arjowiggins Creative Papers in collaboration with D&AD and One Young World. This year, the initiative is asking creative types worldwide to share their views about the future of design with the Blank Sheet Time Capsule. Adding your "personal vision of design and creativity in 2023" is easy; the only requirement is to start with a blank sheet of paper, regardless of whether you end up with an object, an image, a movie, or something in another creative, artistic format. Submissions received by June 30 will be showcased in an online gallery through the end of the year and then taken down and preserved for "rediscovery" in 2023.

Looking for a fresh take on Pinterest? Try the Matboard, a "social bookmarking hub for the creative world." In addition to the usual sharing and exploring, the new digital platform is looking to help creative pros connect based on their shared tastes and interests. Log in to get inspired by posted collections of images and videos in categories such as posters, logos, short film, portrait photography and vintage design; join up with designers in your area using the location filter; or showcase your own work by posting it to a portfolio board. Those dealing with information overload or a case of indecisiveness can click the "Inspire Me" tab and see what they discover.

First came the tablets and then came the deluge of options for toting them around scratch-free. Our favorites come from Italy, where Pijama designs and manufactures soft cases for sleeping devices and "people who love and hate technology and are bored of anonymous folders." Free of zippers and handles, the Velcro-close cases are made of neoprene, combined with a selection of fabrics that range from wool suiting fabrics in plaids and checks to vintage hand-printed cotton. Your iPad will thank you for swathing it in a "dandy red herringbone" sleeve.

Just in time for Easter comes "Eggs-hibition: Unscrambling Their History," a sure-to-be eggs-traordinary show opening March 23 at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science in Greenwich, Connecticut. Visitors can attempt to settle the chicken-or-egg question by examining bird eggs, ugly eggs and fancier specimens, including eggs and artworks borrowed from the Ukrainian Museum and the Museum of Russian Icons. The exhibition will span Fabergé to pharmacology (and, we hope, Cadbury), exploring the evolution of the egg, its prominent inclusion in creation myths worldwide, and how it has inspired artists.