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In the future, great works of art will need to be located near museum power outlets because, apparently, the iPad is rapidly becoming the next generation canvas.

iPad artists have wowed us before with astonishing works of art, but most of them rely on paintbrush-like styluses. Japanese artist Seiko Yamaoka, however, is cranking out eye-poppingly realistic copies of famous paintings using that most clumsy and smelly of tools: the human fingertip.

While we were busy sticking our fingers into light sockets and up our noses, Yamaoka was killing time on the train finger painting fine art just for kicks.

He seemed intent to work his magic in obscurity until he became a mild YouTube celebrity with the above time lapse video of him recreating Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, handily compressing five hours of work into an Internet-friendly five minutes. The finished product is uncannily accurate, although there the telltale soft edges you get from using a digital paint program.

After mastering the iPad, Yamaoka moved on to iPhones and even iPod Touches, presumably again just for giggles. Yamaoka primarily uses ArtStudio, the lite version of which is free to download.

Check out some of his works below:

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▼ He even does a mean thrift store T-shirt wolf

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▼ And for comparison, take a look at this MSPaint masterpiece I spent ALL NIGHT on.

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Some of us have just got it…

Videos: Seiko Yamaoka Youtube Channel

[ Read in Japanese ]