If your sketches are looking flat the dark areas are probably too light; the dark areas give depth and interest, don’t be afraid of them.
I am revisiting the issue of getting the dark areas right. In other posts I have revealed that for most of my art life I was afraid of getting the dark areas dark enough. So I went back through some old sketchbooks and found a couple of sketches from a delightful seminar trip to Southern California. I had some time off so explored and sketched.
Here is one of the early sketches, it is not a bad sketch but it does look quite flat.
So I copied the original sketch to Procreate, then enhanced the dark areas to show the difference, here is the result. Notice how it pops out a lot more. Can you identify the areas which I made much darker? Depending on how you count them it could come to seven.
Here is another from the same trip. Can you see the difference, and identify the areas?
Though with watercolor we tend to work from light to dark, which can make us focus on the lighter colors first, it is actually a good practice to identify the darkest areas before you start. I find it often works to break the traditional approach and actually paint the dark areas first, then come back and intensify them at the end.
Have fun and keep sketching. BTW, this concept works for you photographers as well, you just have to look for scenes that have contrasts.
theTravelsketcher 
It makes such a difference
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Thanks so much.
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Thanks for this lesson/reminder! (Does it also apply to humor?…😬)
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Hmm, it might.
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I only try to paint outside when there is bright light. Then you get the shadows for free. Good contrasts bring life to paintings, in my opinion, and help define form. As someone once said to me its the darks that give you the lights.
Btw I am not sure of that dark between the arches though, on the last painting. There seems to be an incongruency between that and the space above and you have lost the effect of the increase in shadow you’ve place in the brickwork of the arches. I wonder whether you could get more contrast by emphasising the cast shadows of the forms from building and trees on the ground.
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Thanks for the input. This was certainly not a complete work, and was never intended to be. It was to illustrate a point, that is all. And when travelsketching, which is what this is, my intention would not be to be as detailed in analysis, it is to capture the moment. I want people to grab a sketchbook and draw something, many that have come to my workshops are afraid to try at all, my goal is to free them to try.
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