Tulip Top (Digitally Edited and Posterized)

Tulip Top (Digitally Edited and Posterized) Originally uploaded by randubnick

For the past few days, I have been posting photos of last week's excursion to Long Hill Gardens. The first photo that I took that day was of a single tulip with an orange and pink blossom. I thought the flower was amazing, but I didn't pay much attention to its surroundings. When I loaded the image into my computer, I noticed how distracting the background was. The leaves and stalk of the tulip were obscured by other plants. This wasn't a problem that I could solve with cut and paste or even a little retouching with digital pastel. But I really liked the tulip top, so today I tried to salvage the image. I cropped the image to focus on the top of the tulip, and then opened the image in Painter IX. I used opaque digital pastel to replace the foliage of the flowerbed with a simple dark background. Then I posterized the image, and here it is. I also made the image into a pattern, which I will post tomorrow.