I am not an artist at all... but just want to agree with Ross. It's nearly the same with me with the design process... When working on it I tend to "live" in that model with all my senses... During that stage I am usually not interested in specific presentation aspects at all. I can put myself in any corner of the model in my mind and simply "know" how a view from there will act with regard to masses, dimensions etc...
When finished modeling I take a deeper look in those corners and start to experiment with light and shadow, varying colors, maybe placing some additional interior or exterior objects and so on to get a result I like in view of atmosphere and composition...
Cheers,
Franziska