Excuse the delay, I didn't have internet for a few days.
@theprairiefox so you mean that in pics 1 and 2 the central tree and the tree on the left are fighting for the attention of the viewer?
Thanks for the insight. It's really fascinating that there aren't really any rules when it comes to that stuff. You just experiment, think about the feel and the atmosphere you want out of the image and see how it goes. Nevertheless I got some useful pointers out of all you guys. Thank you very much!

Here's what I did. These look so much better in person, than in my crappy phone camera -_-Whatevs.
Images 1 and 2 are done with what you all said in mind. Image 3 is the image I made with the values grouped a little better. Image 4 is a new concept where the tree that is the focal point is actually in the background. Now I don't know if you agree but image 3 works right? Even though the darker values are further back?

@Sliproot Woooah dude, thanks!! This looks awesome. It's really amazing how much different a painting can get with some tweaking in its value scale. I've no idea how to work digitally though :p. I'll create some traditional value studies of my painting and post them. Your example really helped.

I thought about doing some small thumbnails, just the basic shapes and do some value studies. Recreate my drawing with whatever value problems there are and then create a couple of others and see what happens.

@Kevin-Longueil wow, so much information in your comment. Thank you.
That's not digital. It's traditional, colored pencils. There's not much else I can do to it. Paper's already all wrinkled, which I hate.
I didn't know about all these mistakes until you pointed them out to me. It makes sense that things that are in the background cannot be darker than things in the foreground. But it's done now.

Tweaked it a bit. Thanks immensely guys, this looks so much better!!!
I'll keep working.

This insight about the values is really helpful. I'll try to learn and incorporate that trick.

I thought the only issue was that green-yellow background behind the trees. Is there anything that can be done about that? It's really throwing me off and I don't know why.

Hello!
I made this today. I like it and it went quite well, but then I saw that it completely lacks a sense of depth and it pretty much destroyed it for me. Things generally went downhill when I reached the background. Excuse the poor quality, I just wanted to get some critique on this eye-catching lack of depth. The background is a greenish-yellowish color which wasn't the best I could do. But that's not my issue. My issue is it looks more like a backdrop instead of a forest background.
Can anyone tell me why? Critiques or thoughts?

Hello there! Welcome back!!
The bear in your profile photo is rad, loving the design