Duplicated the background layer three times; added gaussian blur to the middle copy and set the highlight levels of the top copy to about 200. Set the mode of the levels adjusted layer to screen and lowered the opacity of the blur and levels layers. Merged all the layers except for the original background and duplicated the new merged layer twice. Added a GIMPressionist filter to the top layer, using changing the paper and brush, changing size, orientation, increased the number of directions, and kept the original background. Changed the opacity of the GIMPressionist layer and the other merged layer, and then merged all the layers.