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Without any photo or image editing experience, I was stumped. I wanted to convey the contrast between my interpretations of the different elements in the painting, but could not think of anything that would look better than a bad Jackson Pollock imitation done in red crayon. 

After a quick Google search, I found the simplest, hacky way to get a result close to what I envisioned. First, I found an image of an old, abandoned building covered in vines. I then imported it into GIMP, adjusting the color balance until I had an image that was primarily red. I duplicated this image, converted it to greyscale, and pasted it in the topmost layer. Next, I added a white layer mask, and began painting over the vines with black selected. Somehow, this essentially equates to painting transparency into the topmost layer. Starting with a thicker brush for the denser areas, I made my way to the edges of the overgrowth, zooming in and switching to smaller brushes along the way. After an hour of eyestrain and carpal-tunnel syndrome inducing mouse control, I had a satisfactory image.