Here is my entry for 
Looking at this picture, I instantly saw places that should be empty to the picture beyond, like a window... and depth to be added by gradient coloring around some of these empty spaces. The OCD in me complains about the lack of perfect symmetry, but it's pretty good and a lot of fun.
I paired the stencil with an artistic render of a clematis vine that I photographed when I lived in Wales. The picture itself lent itself perfectly to playing, so I had some fun. Fortunately, I had a purple one to help fulfill the purple mission of this week's contest.
Rough method... (GIMP)
Alpha channel was already present, so I did not need to add to it.
- Use fuzzy wand tool to select parts for the background. "Delete" each section that I wanted clear for the background.
- Duplicate layer (layer dialogue)- I named it "paint"
- Use paint bucket (make sure "select none" is done) to add solids and patterns to the design.
- Open as layer background image.
- Drag background layer to the bottom so that it is behind the rest of the image.
- Scale background layer to the size I want so that other distractions aren't in the final image.
- Crop image to only include the mandala and the parts of the image I want.
- Export image.
- Take it to Photoscape
- Resize to a better size for uploading as contest entry...
- Add margins as desired.
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
now also on: Whaleshares and WeKu
