Artist's Acrylic Paintings Look Like Photographs

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ainting and photography are two decidedly different forms of art, usually. But in the case of Canadian artist Jason de Graaf, the two media cross over enough that you may think to yourself, "Which is it?" His ultra-realistic paintings are modeled from photographs, and are visually stunning.

De Graaf works in Oka, Quebec, for hours at a time to create his pieces. He first takes a photograph of the subject and draws them onto canvas with pencil. Then, detail by detail, de Graaf recreates every little curve and light reflection until the photograph and painting are nearly identical.

He says his paintings are about creating "the illusion of verisimilitude," and says that although he uses "photographs as the image source, [his] goal is not to reproduce or document faithfully what [he] see[s], but to create an illusion of depth and sense of presence not found in photographs."

See for yourself: