For this piece, I created a vintage circus poster with an emphasis on circus animals. Growing up, my favorite parts of the circus were the elephants and tigers (or lions). Circus animals were the most memorable part for me and interested me the most. 

For this project, I started with a maroon background. I found a shade of maroon that I liked and added a black and red gradient to make the color change. The background also had two different shades of maroon, one being slightly darker than the other. After getting the poster background, I added two different frames. Both frames were a yellow that looked similar to gold, with a grainy texture. After adding the frames, I brought in a white background for the inner frame and game it a similar grainy texture. Lastly, I added an extra piece to go along with the frame and to make the outside less empty. 

After creating the frame and its background, I added banners that I would add text to. Before I could add words, I had to change the white banners to fit the colors of the poster. I added linear burns to the original images of the banners and placed colored backgrounds behind them. When I added the words, I wrote "EST. 1947", "Dallas Circus and Animal Show", and "Deep in The Heart of Texas". On the other banner, I wrote: "Meet The Animals On November 30th" along with animal types that were partially covered. 

I started making the background inside the frame. The first thing I added was a black background behind the top part. After adding in the black area, I added in a red part similar to the background of the image. I added in a slightly grainy texture for both the red and black parts. Over a small portion of the red part, I added in the grass and overplayed it. After looking at the changes, I switched the black area to red and would add to that part later. The last thing I did was add in a fading dot pattern. 

I continued the background inside the frame by placing borders and patterned areas in which animals would be placed. The first thing I did was adding a yellow border to match the frame. I used the pen tool and determined where the animals would go. After that, I made sure that all the areas had a background. I had to add a red circle inside the yellow ring. After having defined backgrounds I filled in those areas. The spot where the monkey is going to be placed had a simple design, dark red stripes coming in from a 45-degree angle. 

Lastly, I added the animals and circus tent. For the monkey and the tiger, I used the "paint daubs" filter. I added this filter because I wanted to make the monkey and tiger a little lower in quality, similar to many vintage posters I looked at. I did the same process for the elephant, but I used a "poster edges" filter instead. The last thing I added was the circus tent because that is another iconic feature that is shown on most vintage circus posters that I observed. For the tent, I added a plastic filter and color balance to make it shinier.

This is the final product, and my representation of a vintage circus poster with an emphasis on animals.