FIRST prize in this annual sponsored exhibition, now in its third year, went to one of the smallest works entered.

Alan Dyson's White Scar and Quarry, Swaledale, North Yorkshire, might easily be overlooked amid the many much larger landscape paintings ranged round the walls, but rewards examination.

This, and his companion pictures, also landscapes, look like simple studies in subdued colours, but considerable thought has gone into the painting to capture that quirk of evening half-light as it shines from behind a hill and also catches surface elements amid shadows in front. Tiny patches of colour seem to glow out of the darkness.

Second place went to a previous prize-winner, Michael G Bilton, for Low Sun, a semi-abstract composition in vivid yellows and greens, which combines a sense of distance and almost overwhelming closeness through shimmering layers of paint.

A drawing by R J Watson, Whitby, came third. His pen and ink drawing, washed with expressive colour, takes the eye along a sweeping line of rooftops on the edge of an inlet and out again along the sea wall in a vigorous triangular composition encompassing a burst of weak sunlight and something of the bleakness that the elements can produce on this coastline.

There are more than 350 works on show in a wide range of media and subject matter, with entries by professional and semi-professional artists drawn from five counties in the North.

Look out for the textural subtleties of Elizabeth A Smith's perfectly-observed Jars on Velvet, with brown jugs set against green drapes, reflections versus shadows; the brilliant blur achieved by the creamy whites and glowing blue in Lesley Coates Jones' atmospheric Offshore, suggestive of continental summer heat; Stephen Johnston's highly commended lighthouse and cottage swathed in almost tangible cold northerly weather effects in The Storm; and Edward Clarke's powerful monochrome drawings of scenes in Malta and Majorca with their grainy surfaces and strong contrasts between sunlight and shadow, the latter of which was highly commended.

Similar awards also went to Carol Tyler, Barbara Ellis, Molly Wright and Nicholas Leake.

In the pantomime season, one wonders whether Terry Culkin's Carolyn owes something to Snow White, with its theatrical curtained backdrop, sharp light spotlighting a partly-eaten apple, and the enigmatic expression of the sitter, so pale against her black dress. Though not one of the best paintings in the exhibition, it suggests an intriguing narrative.

Also entertaining is Elaine Kenyon's botanical cross-section of a clump of earth abounding in plant life and insects, meticulously drawn and painted with an eye for exact representation, a touch of story, too, as the beetle heads for unguarded eggs buried in the soil.

The exhibition runs until December 23. P F