This large group show compares plein air paintings by Washington artists with larger studio paintings of the same subject by the same artists. It would be reasonable to assume that the plein air paintings done on the spot out in nature might be better than the studio paintings - fresher, more spontaneous, less contrived. But as it turns out, that proves to be true in only about half of the paintings. In a few instances, the studio paintings are better, such as Elaine O'Riley's "The Mist and the Tunnel" and her "Amidst the Mist," two versions of the same scene. In this instance, the studio painting is lifted to a higher level of artistic excellence. The painting is of a road going into a tunnel through a mountain. The road is wet and the trees in the foreground and the mountainside are shrouded in mist. It is a moody and enchanting image. What happens in the larger version to make it more magical is that the sharp focus on the double yellow line down the middle of the road combines with the reflections on the road to make it look as if the road floats above the ground as it vanishes into the tunnel, lending to the painting a surrealistic quality that makes it stand out above every other painting in the show.

There are also a lot of paintings in which the differences between the plein air and studio paintings are so slight as to be negligible. The large ones are simply copies of the smaller ones, which makes me wonder, why bother.

Jim Lamb's "Beartooth Evening" is a majestic painting of a craggy mountain seen in the peachy-orange glow of sunset. It was recognized with a Special Award ribbon. His other painting, "Rockmeadow Fog," is a misty, soft and luminous scene in a meadow with hills on the horizon that are barely visible through the fog.  

Mary McInnis' "Forest Trailhead" is one of the more unusual paintings in the show in that it pictures a forest seen from on the trail where horizon and sky are not visible (the vast majority of the paintings are of mountain scenes viewed from a middle distance or farther). This one also stands out because of the artist's way of painting leaves and tree trunks with square brushstrokes that look like little squares of multicolored paper pasted on the canvas. It is also different because the studio version looks more spontaneous and loose than the plein air version, which is more detailed and much less colorful.

Barbara Noonan is showing pastels that are wonderful in their structure and surface quality.

Nancy Allen's "Summer Day at Discovery Park" takes a page from van Gogh's sketchbook with swirling, elongated brushstrokes and clouds in a sunny sky that are similar to the clouds in the master's "Starry Night." It is more subdued than van Gogh, both in color and in the expressive explosion of paint.

Overall, there are a lot of impressive scenes painted with technical skill and wonderful colors. Too many of them look too much alike, and there are only a few, such as Noonan's and O'Riley's, that stand out from the crowd, but there's not a bad painting in the show. Predictable, perhaps, but not bad.

"From Meadows to Mountains", Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., through Jan. 8, American Art Company, 1126 Broadway Plaza, Tacoma, 253.272.4327, www.americanartco.com