It is that time of the year when the festive small paintings show takes place at The Windjammer II Gallery.

The show has been something of a tradition on the Bermuda arts calendar since its serendipitous founding in the early 1990s.

Jay Bluck, owner of Heritage House Gallery turned to Sheilagh Head for help when a December exhibition fell short in the number of paintings submitted. The artist, known for her large landscapes, duly produced the requisite small paintings to fill the gap. They proved so popular that the idea for an affordable show at Christmas was born.

The number of participating artists gradually swelled; and after a hiatus, following the closure of Heritage House, the exhibition was revived in 2008 when Shelaigh Head opened her gallery in the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

Beautiful Things Come in small Packages VI comprises 20 artists, who have produced some enjoyable paintings. Some are very small indeed. Nancy Smythe’s pictures almost fit the miniature genre in level detail and size. Her duo of Cup Match paintings measure approximately just two by three inches. Tiny pictures that pack a big punch. Sheilagh Head too has a selection of these alluring and truly affordable paintings. Her larger oil painting, St Peter’s Churchyard, is an unusual view looking towards the Globe Hotel in St George’s. It is a painting of rest and refinement using sumptuous colour that sings from the canvas in a perfect composition. South Shore Rocks describes a hazy morning light which reaches a gentle denouement through a passage of highlight upon the beach.

Like Sheilagh Head, Lee Petty, is a colourist. Her style is evolving, and, as a keen member of the Island’s en plein air painting group, her paintings demonstrate the fruits of her study outdoors. Salt Kettle Lane is an oil painting that has a timeless feel. She captures the burgeoning oleander and warmth of an evocative Bermuda lane so expressively.

The oil painting entitled, Dutch Door, by Diana Amos is a classic representation of her style. It is an elegant study of the solid nobility of old Bermudian vernacular architecture. Molly Godet is also fascinated with the relationship between the horizontal and perpendicular seen in the Island’s buildings. Her aptly titled watercolour, Solid, is an effective composition accentuated by its square composition.

Alice Coutet offers perhaps her best painting to date for this show. In Princess Walk, she has resisted her temptation to sharpen every edge in pursuit of a photographic exactness that can end up dulling the senses. Here, she has let the originality of her artist’s hand take over. Her work is better for it. The beautifully painted bough twists and turns in a painting that delivers ornamental rhythm and fresh intent by the artist.

Christopher Marson exhibits a series of six gouache pictures. The Day After is a strong painting. The artist evokes an image where minimal landscape elements become a piece of iconography under a mystical sky. However, as a whole, they don’t quite achieve the cohesion of his watercolours. Traditionally gouache is displayed under glass with a matted border but the artist has rendered the medium as if it was oil and applied a gloss varnish. The medium’s intrinsic quality lies in its matte effect and is part of its allure. Varnishing gouache alters its appearance in a drastic way: darkening tones and lowering depth.

South Shore Before the Storms, by Emma Ingham, features a sea painted in menacing mode and a virtuosic sky. Otto Trott exhibits a selection of Bermuda audubon paintings in watercolour. He paints the Cardinal – the majestic harbinger of summer – with a contrasting mellow green background that adds power to the piece. Beautiful Things takes a contemporary turn with the addition of the mixed media conceptual art of Will Collieson. His work is intriguing due to the way he incorporates lost and found items. Inside Out is made from a computer motherboard with its maze of circuitry and interfaces. In the centre, a photographic image of a human eye fixes you with a stare from a cut out circle and creates plenty of interpretative possibilities for the piece.

The indefatigable Stephen Card exhibits two marine art paintings following his epic show at the gallery. Kathy Zuill uses her skill as an interior designer to inform a new style born of colour, pattern and texture in a mixed media series of high decorative appeal. They have a mesmeric quality about them that draws the eye and holds its attention; seemingly revealing more with each viewing. The excellent, Painting With Paper 3, is a collage with a hydrangea at its centre and incorporates organic material within a delicate piece. The final exhibition for 2014 at The Windjammer II Gallery has a good mix of artists who have created both serious and fun work, proving the adage that beautiful things do come in small packages.

The show runs until Christmas Eve.

•Page 10: Nicholas Silk writes on 50 years of Rudolph