The sight-size method isn't quite that restrictive with respect to canvas size. I've worked in the life room of a studio with a dozen other artists, all working sight-size on large bulky easels, and found myself executing a 48" pastel figure study while the artist next to me worked on a 15" pencil drawing. We were both working sight-size. The difference was, in part, where we'd set up our easels (though they were actually in pretty much the same relative position from the model), but as significantly, where we each stood in relation to the easel when we took our measurements off the model. (I stood farther back.) The mechanics are easy to demonstrate, difficult to describe. There was nonetheless considerable effort made to do so in another thread, beginning at
this page.
In a studio setting, sight-size is particularly useful for purpose of critiques, because the instructor can stand in the same place that the student stood to view the model, and the instructor will see exactly the same thing the student saw (or, more often, should have seen). There's very little wiggle room for quibbling over accuracy -- the drawing or painting either looks exactly like the model or subject, or it doesn't. (This does not deter some students from trying to squeeze extra quibble into the wiggle, rarely a successful effort and usually the mark of a beginner.)
It really pays, though, to learn the relative sizing method as well. I found myself in a portrait workshop never having worked in any but the sight-size method, and because of the nature of the studio space and the huge number of participants, I couldn't proceed that way. Relative measuring was a wheel long since invented, but I'd never ridden on that bike before, so I wasted precious workshop time having to reinvent relative sizing for myself.
By the way,
Peggy Baumgaertner's video presentation contains a great deal of discussion and demonstration of working through relative measurements.
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