Planning Before Painting?

I used to paint with watercolors when I was a kid. It was my favorite medium as a matter of fact. Some how over the years I stopped using watercolors and would only use pencil. I picked up oil painting in high school and not once did I miss or wanted to paint with watercolors at all. I lost the touch for it, but one day last year I decided that I will try to work with it again, at least as an aid for my oil painting. I used watercolors to help me plan for two paintings, the first which has already been executed. Home Grown II was a commission from a friend and first patron, and this watercolors sketch was very important to me because not only was it the first time I had worked with watercolors in close to twenty years, but it was a study for a second try at the commission. The first painting I did was not to my or the buyers pleasing. I will develop on this story some other time! The second image below is a sketch done after a finished painting that looks the same. In this drawing I was trying to correct the scale of each subject and their relationship in space to each other. I will be re-do the painting based on the proportions from this drawing.

Study for Home Grown II, 2005, watercolors on paper, 9 1/2 x 8 inches (image size)

Study for Red Cabbage, 2006, watercolors on paper, 10 1/2 x 13 1/4 inches