Question about seeing colors

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Hi everyone. I don't know if this question has been asked before. Does anyone here have the ability to see a color in real life and immediately be able to envision mixing it on a palette or how it will look in a painting/drawing in relation to other colors? I don't even know if I'm phrasing what I want to say well.

Maybe the best way is with an example....Like I can look at something like a tree or an animal, anything really, and in my head tell you the color mixture.....sort of like a recipe in a book. Let's say an oak tree in summer....like a toothpaste amount of sap green, half of a your little finger's finger tip size of alizarin crimson, dioxizine purple and cobalt blue and thalo green for the black etc. I don't even have to do this on the palette to see what my picture will look like.

I can do it with black and white as well. See colors and immediately know the proper gray values to make them.
Or change the "recipe" on a whim, like the tree one above.
I'm wondering if it's something like synethesia? spelling

I used to be able to look at a black and white tv and tell you exactly what colors the people were wearing. I'd look at the b&w tv first and then check my results on a colored tv. Oh well, can't do that now with digital.
I can also take this color mixing ability and alter the mixture as needed based on medium. Like I'd change the mixture for watercolors versus oils.

Hopefully someone understands what I'm talking about. Just curious to know if anyone else sees this way.

to some degree. but the fact is that a colour can be arrived at by various means in terms of colour mixing. the same colour can be arrived at by a combination of different colours and amounts.

i have developed the capacity to break down colour with time and practice. i think it is something that continues to be developed and fine-tuned so long as one works with colour and mixing.

sounds like fun to me.

Well, color can, of course, be arrived at by various means by color mixing, amounts, etc. And certainly practice plays a role. Maybe I am breaking-down color, as you said. Which is a good way to put it.

I guess what I meant was-the ability to describe complex colors with words and/or envision them in the mind before actually seeing the mixtures play out in paint. Like the way someone telling someone how to cook something might say add a dash of salt, and a 1/4th cup of flour, etc, but not actually showing the person.

But maybe it is all the result of practice. I've been drawing/painting all my life. I didn't think that it was necessarily a special skill. It's always hard to put visual thinking in the terms of written language.

You're right, however, it is fun.

i think these abilities can be learned or innate, depending on visual acuity, the way our brain works, and the process of perseverative actions with a special interest.

i can look at colours and break them down also, but the process is definitely a learned one, as at some point i had to have some education in colour theory. in saying that however, one can indeed have an intuitive colour sense that has little to do with a verbal breakdown of colours and quantities and the ingredients.

great thread for me to read, though.

I've never thought of this, but it might be fun to try.

I can picture color-mixing very well. They just never turn out the same in real life.