Carol Nunan — Printmaker, Isle of Bute

Fine art prints inspired by Scotland and Northumberland

In 1998, I was in the local library looking for books for my children when I picked up a brochure for the Centre for Lifelong Learning. I hadn't done anything creative for nearly three years. My husband travelled constantly across continents, which meant I was a full-time mother with very little time to call my own. When he was back home, I signed up for a printmaking workshop — partly to try something new, partly just to claim back a few hours for myself.

I was struggling with postnatal depression at the time, though I didn't fully understand that then. What I did know was that something about those first pulled prints felt like a door opening. I had no idea it would change everything.

More than two decades on, I'm still in the studio every day — and I've spent much of that time helping others find in printmaking what I found: a way back to themselves. Some come through mental health organisations. Some simply book a workshop. Many arrive not quite knowing why they're drawn to it. They leave having found out.

Today I work from my garden studio on the Isle of Bute, looking out over Rothesay Bay, making bold monotypes and collagraphs rooted in Scotland's wild west coast and Northumberland's ancient landscapes.

Where It All Started

There is a strong artistic vein running in my family. My great-aunt studied at London's prestigious Slade School in the early 1930s —a rare achievement for a woman at that time.

My cousins, my son and I each followed that creative spark into painting, printmaking, ceramics and cinematography.

A Journey Across Continents

Ireland → Zambia → Ireland → South Africa → Northumberland → Isle of Bute

I was born in Ireland but spent my formative years in Zambia, absorbing cultures and landscapes that have influenced my approach to art.

At sixteen, I returned to Ireland. After graduating from The National College of Art & Design in Dublin with a degree in Visual Communications, I headed to South Africa to explore graphic design.

Cape Town is where I met my husband. We settled in Northumberland, and seven years later, fulfilled our dream of moving to Scotland's Isle of Bute.

From Student to Studio Owner

That first workshop led to another, and then another. When government funding for the Centre for Lifelong Learning was eventually cut, my teacher Rebecca Vincent and I made a decision: rather than lose the dedicated audience we had built together over the years, we would open our own studio. We were both mothers with young children, both determined to make our art pay for itself. Going into partnership allowed us to keep delivering workshops while each pursuing our own work.

When personal circumstances eventually brought that chapter to a close, I went on to open my own studio in Hexham, Northumberland. Teaching remained central to my practice — and word spread. I was approached by mental health organisations and hospitals to deliver printmaking workshops: at North Tyneside Art Studio, where GPs referred patients to explore art as part of their care; on the wards at St George's Hospital in Morpeth; and in the radiotherapy department at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, where patients waited for treatment.

Those experiences confirmed what I had known since 1998 — that there is something about the act of printmaking, the focus it demands and the surprises it delivers, that reaches people in ways little else can.

What Inspires My Work

My work is rooted in the landscapes I've called home. In Northumberland it was the untamed moorland, the coastline, the ancient sites strung along Hadrian's Wall, and the sweeping beauty of the National Park. Now, on the Isle of Bute, it's the ever-changing light over Rothesay Bay, the dramatic shifts in weather rolling in off the Atlantic, and the rich wildlife of the island's moors and shorelines.

Both places share something: a rawness, a sense of land and sea that hasn't been smoothed over. That's what draws me — and what I try to capture through bold marks, unexpected colour, and the particular unpredictability of monotype and collagraph printing. Each print begins with an intention and ends somewhere I didn't quite plan. I've never tired of that.