Traditionally, "speed drawing" refers to the act of creating art quickly, but the YouTube era has lended this term a new meaning, as budding artists show off their portraiture skills in fast forward. To be fair, the masterworks you'll see below didn't exactly take all day -- a few hours to duplicate Jack Bauer is certainly beyond my expertise -- but thanks to time-lapse video, you get all the thrill of watching them materialize in a matter of minutes.   Check out our favorites after the jump...

Optimus Prime

Nico Di Mattia's rendering of the classic Transformers hero is packed with detail. It is a robot we're talking about, after all. The way that the rough sketch becomes a chiseled, fully-covered machine is particularly impressive, and the extra bits of coloring at the end are icing on the cake.

Jack Bauer

In another one by Nico Di Mattia -- this guy's incredibly prolific in the speed drawing world -- the star of 24's grizzled pose is perfectly captured, right down to the slightly squinted eye as he aims to shoot you in the face. Speed painting Bauer can't be much different than getting interrogated by him.

Mona Lisa in Microsoft Paint

ElectricAsylumArt gets extra credit for using the most feature-barren paint program in computing. The act of meticulously creating wireframes and narrowing blunt brush strokes down to unique shades of color is a work of art in itself. And of course, the result is picture-perfect.

Jessica Alba

Here's some eye candy for you. We're docking points because the painting itself took seven hours to complete and consumes seven minutes to watch, but giving them right back because mediamaster nailed the artwork.

Nicolas Sarkozy becomes The Terminator

When I think of France, I don't picture an army of intelligent robots conquering humanity, but that's artistic vision for you. Martin Missfeldt starts with an image of a rooster, transitioning to the French president and covering it all up with the face of Judgment Day -- all within three hours, and just four and a half minutes on your screen.

Ronald McDonald (With Ketchup and Fries)

ElectricAsylumArt uses a large order of McDonald's french fries and 10 packets of ketchup to pair the fast food chain's adorable mascot and biggest critic, side by side. I don't know what's more impressive, the fact that it only took 50 minute to create or the many layers of irony within. Cravings for those golden cuts of potato are stronger than ever somehow.

The Joker

The best part of this speed painting, by far, is that look. With head tilted down and eyes up, that smirk is whittled to perfection by N. Suarez over the course of five time-lapsed minutes. Add the outfit and frazzled hair, and you've got Batman's greatest villain in the flesh.

Jennifer Lopez

Remember J.Lo? This is how she looked back when she was the center of entertainment media. The method in Stephen Gladue's work is admirable, starting with the face and slowly spiraling outward to reveal the singer in her classic pin-up pose.

F1 Crash

This speed painting by Martin Missfeldt is so very meta. Here you have a 3-hour painting of an F1 racer hurdling into a ditch, parts flying everywhere, and at the center of it all is another speed painter, capturing the action as it happens. The dynamics of the airborne car components are positively explosive, too.

Ray Charles

For good measure, our last item is a real speed painting, created in real time. Hand-painting whiz Dan Dunn takes only five minutes to whip up a stylish memorial of Ray Charles, with the help of a rotating canvas. The best part: It only comes together in the last minute. This would be great at your kid's Bar Mitzvah.

Thanks for reading, Redditers, Stumblers, Diggers and otherwise.  What is your personal favorite on the list?  Have you seen a great example of speed painting that we missed?  Let us know in the comments.  Thanks for reading!

[main image courtesy: rainan117]