A technique named after the French word for ‘stencil’. A stencil is made by cutting a shape out of a thin sheet material such as paper, card, metal or plastic. The stencil is placed on a surface and used as a guide to apply paint or ink onto it by hand. Pochoir was practiced by specialist studios in Paris in the early 1800s who made multicolour prints, and added colour to black-and-white prints and book illustrations.