Thanks to Tricia Fuglestad's resources on her website found here, we used her figure template to study human proportions when flying. Students soon had their gesture drawings transformed into self-portraits with capes, pajamas, super-hero costumes and more. After a class period of practicing students used sharpies to draw their self-portrait onto a 4" x 6" piece of white tag board, and colored in using markers.
The backgrounds were collaged using construction paper and other drawings on paper using markers and crayons (I highly recommend Crayola's Construction Paper Crayons - nice vibrant colors without the smearing effects of cray-pas or oil pastels). I like to cut construction paper into 4" x 12" strips to make layered backgrounds. Students select three to four different colors. Beginning with the sky or top, students lay the first color down onto a 9" x 12" piece of construction paper. They then move downwards, drawing and cutting a line for the background (clouds, mountains, sun, etc.), then repeating the step for the middle ground below it (buildings, water, etc.), and finally again at the bottom for the foreground (road, houses, grass, etc.). My fourth grade students are familiar with creating space by overlapping in art so I usually don't spend a whole lot of time going over this method, just a few reminders and they are off!
The final step was to cut out their flying portrait to glue to their background. Their details are what really made these inspiring artworks. This would be a great lesson to tie in writing as well; If I Could Fly....