My point is not that artists shouldn't learn about color and learn color theories. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't learn how human's see and process information. What I'm saying is that they already do that. But they are doing it with different models and techniques that are keyed to their domain and tools.

Sure, learn about RGB/CMY. It doesn't hurt. And printing technology, which is a different domain is very similar, though not the same in critical areas.

There's nothing magic or even very special about the methods and models you are talking about outside their domain of use.

If you are a designer who is working in print or onscreen display, you will learn to think in RGB/CMY(K). But there's nothing universal or special about that system compared to other systems. It's not more science compared to the systems artists use in their various working practices.

It's not more keyed to human physiology, in fact I'd argue that it is less intuitive and useful. I'll agree that it's not a numeric model and it's not a model designed for accuracy; and reproducibility. But it is a model tightly coupled with human perception, expression, and communication.

(As a designer working with digital imagery and renderings, I make major use of HSB style color models. I've written many special purpose tools for giving me effects I want, using all kinds of hair brained models, and then converting the results into RGB.)

To create a numeric model of how artists use color would be very difficult. If it weren't we'd be able to make cameras that made illustrations. And we can't and don't.

What an artist does is make an observation, and I mean this in both an abstract and practical sense. He or she then takes that observation and creates an abstraction of it, and then tries to make a work that communicates that abstraction. With the tools and mental model at hand.

There's a photo floating on Reddit right now of where a hair stylist has arranged hair clippings found on the floor in the shape of a dog. It's a wonderful piece of throwaway art. Now you could sit down and say, "If I take these hairs and arrange them with these percentages, I'll be able to get this range of colors and represent these textures ..."

But that's silly. The artist sees the hair, it reminds them of something, like a dog, and they spontaneously arrange them, making corrections and following intuition as they go.

http://i.imgur.com/ZNmxV.jpg

Now if you are going to start an artistic tradition of arranging hair clippings for art, you might come up with some theories to model different effects. But I don't think you are going to be making numeric models. For one thing you never know what kinds of hairs you are going to find on the floor. Instead you are going to learn to "fake" it by using the relative and comparative artifacts of the human's visual and perceptual system. But it will almost certainly be intuitive and spontaneous. Lots of trial and error.

If this art form becomes a tradition, then special markets will develop in hair clippings, special dealers selling hair patches arranged nicely in special ways, maybe even a bit like RGB/CMY. (But don't push it.) Hair dyeing might become a specialty, but purists will insist on nature hair and natural hair colors. There will be much arguing about it and many bar fights.

And if you decide that there's a market in selling hair floor arrangements in mass quantities, then you might see something akin to what you see in modern printing or broadcast. Specialists will arise.

And most artists will say, "It's hard enough to make a pile of dog hair look like something interesting while worrying about all that. I'll make a good pile of hair and leave it up to the specialists to mass produce it. Maybe I'll use standard hair patches to make things easier, I do like it when the reproduction is well done. But I hate limiting my choices and opportunities, and besides the reproduced hair piles never look as good as the original anyway. After all, it's just a copy."