Silverpoint

Seeing

Line + Mass

Comparative measurement

Pick a unit, mark it with your thumb on the pencil, and count how many units everything else is. Nobody can judge size; everybody can count.

You cannot judge how tall a tower is. You can count that it is two and three-quarter times as tall as it is wide. That is comparative measurement: choose one dimension in the subject as a unit (the width of the tower, the height of a doorway), mark it on the pencil with your thumb at arm's length, and then count that unit along every other dimension you need.

Pick a unit that is easy to see and medium-sized. Too small and you are counting to twenty; too large and you cannot subdivide. Draw the unit on your paper at whatever size you like, and then everything else is drawn in proportion to it. The drawing can be any size; the ratios are what matter.

Measure the big things first: the whole building's height to width, then the main divisions, then the parts. Measuring a window before you have measured the wall it sits in is how the window ends up the right size in the wrong place.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 2H or H, long point sighting and measuring want a pale line you can draw through twenty times.
  2. 2Grafwood HB to commit the line once the measurement agrees.
  3. 3Alpha sketchbook and the pencil itself as the sighting stick, held at arm's length.

Visuals

Comparative measurement: thumb on the pencil marks the tower's width, then that unit is counted up its heightPICK A UNIT, THEN COUNT IT1 unit = width2.8 units tallthumb slides on the pencil to markthe unitThe arm must be straight every time or the unit changes. Lock the elbow. Same eye.Nobody can judge "how tall". Everybody can count "how many of these".
FigureOne unit, counted. Arm straight, same eye.

Pitfalls

What

Measuring with the arm bent to see better.

Why

Every measurement after that is in a different unit.

Fix

Straight arm, locked elbow, or do not measure at all.