In my phenakistoscope project, I decided to represent the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water through a woman's hair. I decided to split the 16 slots by four, allowing each element 4 slots, with the hair showing the element growing longer and shorter as the wheel turns. For the four 'earth' slots, I chose to draw vines instead of rocks/actual earth as vines are more similar to actual hair, and therefore is more cohesive with the overall piece. I decided to make the four 'air' slots look like wind, as static air is difficult to draw, and having the movement of wind would make the animation look more fluid. For the 'water' slots, I initially planned on making the movement of the hair look like waves in the ocean, but after drawing the wind with a similar aesthetic, I decided to instead make the water look like it was dripping down as it grew longer. Finally, the last major decision with this piece I made was to keep both the facial expression and movement very limited and restrained. I did this in an effort to put the primary focus on the movement and growth of the hair.
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