THE West Burton art group’s annual Easter exhibition has become a fixture in the Dales calendar and this year promises the usual eclectic mix from these mainly amateur artists.

Works range from the down-to-earth – wellington boots and a watering can sitting quietly in a little grey porch – to the exotic – boats bobbing in the harbour of Skiathos in the electric blue Aegean, captured by husband and wife, Judith (Gardening) and Jonathan (Skiathos Town) Woolley, long-standing members of the group, now in its 17th year.

The interests, observations and affections of the artists form a varied but surprisingly cohesive whole. Dinah Francis’s blue hare looking mildly apprehensive and alert to possible predators, is the most obvious, her clear-eyed fox with a faraway gaze, looks more wistful than wily.

The 50 or so works are on sale – and they go quickly – in the light and spacious West Burton Village Hall where the artists not only mount exhibitions but practise their art every Wednesday.

There is no tuition, most are retired professionals with no formal artistic training, but all love painting and sharing the results of their efforts which, as ever, provide a feast for the eye.

The exhibition is on Easter Sunday and Monday, April 1 and 2, from 10am-4pm. Admission is free, with tea and biscuits, artists’ original work for sale and donations invited for, among others, St Teresa’ Hospice in Darlington.