The exhibition at the Bermuda Arts Centre at the Dockyard of pastels done by the students of the renowned Sharon Wilson is remarkably good, but Ms Wilson?s hand is everywhere evident.

All students absorb basic technical facility from their teachers and discipline is the first essential in the artist?s bag of tricks. Colour schemes, however, are generally an intricate part of how an individual artist sees, student or not.

The dominant colour scheme of this show is that of the palette of Sharon Wilson, not of seventeen different individual students.

The layering and texturing of the pastels is also characteristic of Sharon Wilson and is a technique her students have grasped thoroughly and to their great and lasting advantage. They study at the feet of a master.

It will come as a surprise to no one that I am a believer that a solid groundwork in technique is absolutely essential for an artist who wishes to convey anything in his work.

Not one of Ms Wilson?s students can be said to have failed to learn thoroughly and in many cases to have mastered her technique. So strong is this impression that in this show the work of another pastel artist, for example Diana Tetlow, would stand out from the crowd as fundamentally different.

One has to wonder whether a small crowd of would-be Sharon Wilsons makes too much sense. On the other hand it can certainly be hoped that with their technique mastered Ms Wilson?s flock may now take wing and fly on their own.

Already marching to the tune of a somewhat different drummer were some of a group of still life works. ?Onions?, by Catherine Guffy, was a richly textured monochrome deftly composed and warm with light and her ?Pears?, more colourfully rendered, was also subtly composed.

?Still Life in Green? by Margarita Harries stood out for its fresh colour scheme, her fruit cool, refreshing and tangibly juicy.

Two interesting treatments of the same subject from the same angle directly above by Francesca Ward and Marushka Outerbridge demonstrated how differently even two students in the same class can see the same thing. A rare abstract, ?Bay Leaf Abstract? by Belinda Butterfield, also stood out from the crowd for its well handled colour scheme and subtly broken composition.

Her ?Lion of Judah?, not the late Emperor, but a real lion done in close-up was also deftly treated and surprisingly appealing without being in the least cartoonlike.

Another effective abstract was ?Palmetto Berry? by Andrea Peets; a near abstract and interestingly composed and weighted was ?Goldfish? by Sarai Hawkes.

Frank Dublin is a long-term student with Sharon Wilson and is here represented by two landscapes that catch the eye. One ?Long Bay Park?, is in his usual sombre colour scheme; the other, ?Nature Walk?, is brighter, more colourful and altogether more cheerful.

Another landscape, perhaps done in the same class as Dublin?s ?Nature Walk? is by Tanya Reinli in which she challenged herself with an exciting colour scheme that came off very well.

Ms Reinli also has the one entirely unique piece in the show in a technique she developed for herself, a combination of pastels and epoxy.

It is of Gombeys and is brilliantly colourful and deeply textured. It is not a treatment I have ever seen done with pastel, but the result is certainly exciting.

In this review I have picked out work because it was a little different rather than because it was any better perhaps to encourage more venturing out in style and subject.

The quality of work in the show is uniformly high. Sharon Wilson has every reason to be proud of her students and they have every reason to be extremely pleased with their show. I am only sorry I missed the paintings that were sold at the opening.

On an entirely different subject I want to put in a plug for the educational cartoons of Peter Woolcock now to be seen at the National Gallery just inside the door.

They are colourful, detailed, entertaining, informative, great fun and should not be missed by any of the legion of admirers of his regular cartoons in this paper. Even politicians will enjoy them.