Urban sketching exercise

I'm taking an online Craftsy class from James Richards called "Sketching the Energy of Places." I haven't had/made time yet to go out and sketch on site, but yesterday morning I had an hour before work, so I decided to redo a picture I had painstakingly painted before as a pen-and-watercolor sketch.

I had fun doing it, but it wasn't too successful in terms of what I was going for. I wanted the three houses in the center and the interesting building up on the hill to be the focal point of the scene, and for the rest of the houses and rooftops to fade into background, but instead they just look unfinished. I posted it for some helpful advice from Jim--we'll see what he says.

This weekend, I'm going to try a real on-site urban sketch with people and "entourage," as Jim calls extras like lampposts, trees, bollards, and so on.

Here is the painting I made before, from this photograph: