A construction apparatus including a body having a front, a rear, a top, a bottom, and first and second opposite sides. The front has a front surface having a plurality of block images configured to generally depict a plurality of courses of blocks, each of the courses having a respective course width. The first and second sides have generally complementary step shapes including at least two rises and at least one run between the rises, each rise being about equal to one of the course widths or a sum of a plurality of the course widths.