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Thanks to the ever-increasing power of smartphones and their touchscreen technology, more and more applications are allowing people to get in touch with their artistic side and create beautiful pieces on their device.

Japanese artist Seikou Yamaoka is one such individual who is embracing this new digital art form by creating amazing portraits using only two things: his smartphone and his finger.

When you’re painting on a digital device like an iPhone or tablet, the size of the screen is generally much smaller than a typical canvas. Most people don’t like to paint small pieces because they like to add detail and then step back from their work to get a feel for the entire piece. This strategy doesn’t work so well when painting on an Apple device, because when you step back, you likely won’t be able to see much of anything.

But that didn’t stop Seikou Yamaoka, who began toying with painting on his iPhone during his daily commute. Today, Yamaoka shares a lot of his art via his Facebook page, and even though the finished pieces are truly impressive to behold, watching him work might be even more spectacular.

One of Yamaoka’s most recent paintings is of the United States President, Barack Obama. It’s pretty amazing that Seikou could finish this in six hours. It’s also the youngest and most vibrant image of the president that we’ve seen in a while.

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Seikou used a free painting application called MediBang Paint to create this piece, and with the application “paints” a pretty realistic portrait with just his fingers. He collapses six hours of painting down into around five minutes of video, so you have to follow pretty carefully if you want to catch all the details.

▼ The artist says that iPhone art frees him from the constraints of place and tools.

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Yamaoka doesn’t paint only presidents either! Take a look at some of his other portraits, which he creates in an app called ArtStudio.

With this amount of talent and artistic vision, you know that any other art he makes must also be fantastic. For those interested in seeing more of Yamaoka’s work, be sure to check out his home page and Facebook page.

If Seikou is looking for some inspiration for his next portrait, maybe we should send him a photo of our venerable Mr. Sato. Which picture would we choose, though? He has so many looks

Thanks to Buster for the tip!

Source & screenshots: YouTube/メディバン