A simple photo of colorful metal poles underlies this image.  Many manipulations were applied, including Stylus, Bubbles, Drops, Smears and so on, ending with Rumples and some overlapping Waves.  Actually, these steps have been preserved as a Script called ObliterateUndulate, and that is included with the sample Scripts installed with Liquib.  So it is possible to recreate this sequence using any source image!