Background

[Rvaranda]

I spent some time drawing this small background, and I would like some tips on how to improve it. My greatest difficulties were drawing the background moutains, the grass and the dirt. I think the grass and the dirt are too noisy, but I couldn't figure out how to blend them nicely, and I don't think I shade the mountais correctly (the light source is coming from the top-right). The things I think I've done nicely are the trees and clouds. I have little experience with pixel art, and this is the art I took most since I started doing pixel art, so any critiques and advices are welcome.

[MysteryMeat]

First, you've got a lot of visual noise. Try to smooth some of it out!
Second, try reworking the dirt so the transition ends closer to the top rather than being as spread out.

[Cyangmou]

yes, try to get rid of the visual noise, especially the gray single pixels in the dirt are quite bad.

For the mountains, they look shapewise not like mountains usually look. While there are classical "traingle" shapes, usually mountains are rather a broad band with a lot of sharp articulation at their shilouette against the sky.
There also is no middleground so to speak off, like trees, so the mountains emerge directly behind the ground.
It's really hard for the viewer to judge how far they are away and therefore you loose a sense of depth you could get.

I just resized a photograph and put it next to your artwork. I don't know what kind of environment you exactly want, but just look how differently the mountain shapes and general shilouette line is - and how the trees are placed on the actual mountains, emphasizing the depth by getting bigger towards the foreground - which you could achieve with an additional middleground layer. THis layer should contain some trees which are smaller and less contrastful like the foreground trees.

 

https://static.pexels.com/photos/1029/landscape-mountains-nature-clouds.jpg