When stuff starts to look worse as you go, that's when you're learning! We all know how hard that can be, but it's a necessary evil. Basically, before that, you're too bad to notice how bad it is. As your skill increases, you start to notice how bad everything looks, but you're not good enough to fix it yet. Then after practice, it becomes possible to fix those issues. You're super happy about your art, until it starts looking bad again. Repeat.
Without this cycle, learning is impossible. People who are content with their art tend to be stuck and hardly improve. People who only see their art as bad have the same problem. You need the cycle. Notice that "bad" and "good" are relative terms. Most artists that are highly praised craftsmen still go through this cycle (though it slows down of course, but that only makes the "I'm bad" parts longer) and their "bad" is different from your "bad", but it might be possible that neither of your "bad"s will be perceived as such by a large audience.
As for the background, the problem is value. If you blur this and grayscale it, I will have no idea what I'm looking at. Throw the colors out for now, forget the architectural details, just try to make a grayscale mockup of the general form you want, using a large brush. Then you start refining. Right now, the mountains are higher contrast than the building for example, so I have to strain my eyes to pay attention to the building.
