Nicola Birnie graduated with an Honours Degree in Printed Textile Design in 1995 from Edinburagh Heriot Watt University. For the next eight years she worked as a freelance designer selling designs around the world, inparticular to the US and Japan. Her designs have appeared in such places as Macey's, New York and Capri Card Company.

Now bringing up her young family with her husband, Nicola has returned to her first love of painting and over the years has taken on many personal commissions in a great variety of styles and mediums, specialising in pencil drawings, watercolours and acrylic paintings.