A New Way to Learn Color Mixing?

This turtle was carved into Balsa Foam and painted in acrylic paint by an 8th grade student who happens to be color blind. Concerned about his ability to mix color, he asked his friend to describe what colors should go into mixing the colors for his turtle.

Beginning with the dark green on the right side of the turtle, his friend gave very precise instructions on how much green, orange, red goes into each stage of the gradation. He coached him through painting the entire turtle.

In some ways his description gave better color mixing results than the color mixing on his own project. Perhaps the act of having to describe the contents of the color caused him to look "deeper" into the color.