You can get closer with the lasso in Paint, just keep dragging the line close to the subject, don't take notice of the long straight line as it won't stay in place until you have completed your circuit. There is a place where you can change to dotted lines too, I saw something in the choose options under tools.

I tried a mid blue .. it might go with the Salvia!

I see what you have done Jay is to cut out the subject, I'm cutting out the bacground (using 'cut' in Edit) in sections then using the eraser to get rid of the rest. The checkered bacground will go to white when saved without colour fill.

I like the tulip best. I try to look at the pictures with an unbiased eye, and the upside down orange stamens look like a bunch of carrots....

That's the trouble with a bunch of stamens looking like a bunch of carrots Hetty!

I thought the tulip shows it's stamens best, and I have a feeling it would be very difficult to show stamens of Lilium any better. The tulip was a simple job of resizing too!

I tried a Hemerocallis but it probably gives more the impression of a Hemerocallis than pollen.

There may be other ways to do it in gimp but this is the way I learned and it works for me.
In paint you are erasing the background in gimp I am masking then separating. I isolate the image with lasso.



Then apply the mask with one click




Then use pencil tool the mask the rest of the unwanted parts.






Here it is completely masked.


Next remove mask.



The you use edit to copy and past as new.




There are a couple more steps the can be applied to clean up the edges but they can be skipped and just save at this point or apply background color.

How about a bee pollinating a flower

Jay, it looks like the lasso is easier to use in GIMP. Once you get used to a method it's difficult to think of doing it any other way.

Storm of the Century stamens .. (I'm trying ;))

The only time I have used gimp in the past was to try and create some scroll saw patterns, but since we have been working on these badges I have really started to like it. I will be working with it more now, trying to learn some of the other things to do with it.

It can be addictive once you grasp the basics I agree!

Ya know, I really like the first one I did of Aucuba japonica, the tepals are simple and rather like a stylised flower showing blobs of pollen, it's clean and neat.

This one ..

How about stamens, pollen and a brush?

I like less the flower outline. The carrot sticks can be turned left or right.
Taking the plant ID badge as example, how 'bout three yellow orbs in the lens of a magnifying glass.
Brian

Carrot sticks turned into left facing stamens .

I've got an idea for using the magnifying glass but I need to practice a little with combining photos. I'll post it later if I work it out.

Be careful, I just tried to get a photo of a magnifying glass and got a false windows alert showing all sorts of trojans etc, couldn't leave the page either even though windows kept asking me if I wanted to so I had to restart the computer!

How about something like this, I have others.

It's important to look at it in the small size - that is how the stamens became carrots

I would leave it to someone else to reduce it to the necessary size. I could just send the photos.

Margaret, I cropped the second one down a little to make it square then resized .. nice photo but unfortunately the stamens don't show up.

What colors would work best?