An online course by Nell Harker, printmaker, printing since 2008
Print with sunlight. Sell what you print.
Cyanotype is photography you can do at a kitchen sink: coat a sheet, lay it in the sun, wash it, and watch a blueprint appear. Eight modules take you from your first coated sheet to a numbered edition you can sell.
Prints on the line in week one
You coat and expose your first sheet in Module 1. Everything after that is refinement.
Chemistry without the fear
Two bottles, gloves, a kitchen sink. The safest process in photography, taught properly.
An edition you can sell
The course ends with a numbered edition: printed, priced, packed and honestly described.
The curriculum
Eight modules. Thirty-six hours. No filler.
Every module states its hours, because the pace planner below does real arithmetic with them. Each one ends with a print on your line, not a quiz.
- 01
Chemistry, safety & your kit
3h- The two-bottle sensitiser, mixed in daylight
- What is actually hazardous, and what is not
- A complete starter kit for under £60
- 02
Coating paper
4h- Rod versus brush, and why I coat with a rod
- Paper sizing: what soaks and what sits
- Drying flat in a dark cupboard
- 03
Digital negatives
5h- From phone photo to printable negative
- Curves: the ugly inversion that prints right
- Inkjet films, cheap and dear, tested side by side
- 04
Exposure & the sun
6h- Reading UV: March sun against July sun
- Test strips you will actually keep
- The £40 UV unit for winter printing
- 05
Wash, dry, cure
4h- The first wash: watching the image arrive
- Oxidation, and why prints deepen for days
- Flattening and storing finished work
- 06
Toning: tea, tannin, iron
5h- Split-toning blue to slate and warm brown
- Kitchen-cupboard toners that archive well
- When to stop: restraint as a technique
- 07
Beyond paper: fabric & wood
4h- Printing on cotton, linen and plywood
- Scaling up to A2 and beyond
- Photograms: printing without a negative
- 08
Editioning & selling
5h- Numbering an edition honestly
- Pricing handmade prints without apology
- Packing, shipping and the postal test
36 hours all in; the planner below packs them around your week.
The pace planner
Fit it around your life, not the other way round.
Tell the planner how many hours a week you can honestly give it. It re-packs the eight modules into real weeks and tells you when you will finish. Six is comfortable. Three still gets you there.
6 weeks
finishes six weeks after you start
Assumes you start next Monday. Life happens; the plan is yours to drag again.
- Wk 1 Chemistry, safety & your kit · Coating paper 6h
- Wk 2 Coating paper (cont.) · Digital negatives 6h
- Wk 3 Exposure & the sun 6h
- Wk 4 Wash, dry, cure · Toning: tea, tannin, iron 6h
- Wk 5 Toning: tea, tannin, iron (cont.) · Beyond paper: fabric & wood 6h
- Wk 6 Beyond paper: fabric & wood (cont.) · Editioning & selling 6h
Modules split across weeks exactly as you will meet them; the hours come straight from the curriculum above.
Your instructor
Taught by hand, by someone who prints every day.
I'm Nell Harker. I have made cyanotypes since 2008: first in a rented darkroom in Bristol, now in a garden studio with a washing line, a UV unit, and a sink I have stained a colour that no longer washes off.
I built this course because most cyanotype tutorials stop at the fridge-magnet stage: one fern, one sunny day, done. The interesting problems (negatives that print right, toning that archives, editions people pay for) get skipped. This course does not skip them.
- 2008First print: a fern, hopelessly overexposed. Still on the studio wall.
- 2015Solo show, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
- 2019Editions stocked by eleven UK galleries and shops.
- 2023Started teaching this course. 2,400 students since.
What students leave with
The proof is on the line.
2,417
students enrolled since 2023
92%
finish the course they planned
4.9
average rating from 631 reviews
Marta K · week 2, first wash
Sam O · week 5, split-toned
Priya R · week 8, edition of 20
Enrolment is open
Prussian Blue, complete.
£165one payment, no subscription, lifetime access
Start the moment you enrol. Print within your first week. If it is not for you, fourteen days, full refund, and keep the recipe book.
Enrol for £16514-day guarantee. No forms, just one email.
- 36 hours of filmed teaching, shot over Nell's shoulder
- The sensitiser recipe book, printable PDF
- Digital negative curves for six common printers
- Monthly live critique, recorded if you miss it
- Private student gallery and critique forum
- Every future module free: the course grows
Honest answers
Asked every cohort.
Do I need a darkroom?
No. A kitchen sink, a tray, and a cupboard to dry paper in the dark. The sensitiser does not care about ordinary indoor light; only UV exposes it, so you mix and coat by a window with the blinds half down.
I live somewhere grey. Is a British winter enough sun?
Honestly: December sun in Manchester will expose a print in about forty minutes, and you will not enjoy the standing around. A £40 UV unit gives repeatable exposures all year, and Module 4 tests both side by side so you can decide.
Is the chemistry safe to use at home?
Cyanotype is the least hazardous process in photography. You still treat it like chemistry: gloves, labelled bottles, no food containers, away from children and pets. Module 1 opens with the full safety sheet before you touch a bottle.
How much will materials cost me?
About £60 to start: chemistry, a coating rod, decent paper and gloves. After that a finished A4 print costs roughly 80p in materials, which is part of why editions of these sell so well.
How long do I have access?
Forever. One payment, no subscription, and every module added later is included. The course last grew in March, when the fabric module doubled.
What if my hours-a-week turns out to be optimistic?
Then drag the slider again. The plan is a tool, not a contract: the course does not expire, and the monthly critique call is just as useful in week twenty as in week two.