Icons can be a great tool to quickly communicate a simple and familiar function.
Many people learn the icons for cut, copy and paste, others are familair with Print or Save. Unfortunately if you go icon-happy you can start to get confused.
Here are four icons for different variations of the same idea of coloring in an object.
Icons can only go so far. As the number of icons increases the likeliness that users will remember the icon or understand the metaphor decreases.