Gradient Mesh- Coloring individual points

I'm trying to practice on myself using the gradient mesh tool… I understand the point made about making many smaller meshes e.g. eyes, nose, mouth…
I'll start from the beginning…
I open an image of myself >open the layers panel and lock my image…
Create a new blank layer…
Then I select my pen tool…
Start making an outline of my face, approximately 1-3 pixels all the way around the outside…
Then I go up to the menu bar and click on, "Object >Create Gradient Mesh" - 15 rows by 15 columns…
then I use the selection tool and select the whole mesh that was just created…
then set the opacity to 0%…
Using the direct selection tool to select & move anchor points and handles as needed to match light lines…
then I use the mesh tool to select an anchor point to start coloring…
this is where I start to run into trouble…
after selecting my first anchor point to color, I select the color picker tool from the toolbox…
for some reason I'm not able to select that color beneath the mesh (the color underneath the selected anchor point)…
I played around & so far the only way I'm able to select the color beneath is by moving the whole mesh to the side, but… I end up losing the reference point of where that anchor was…
Illustrator CS6
Any help, tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated…
Thank you in advance,
Rob

I ended up watching a video with no sound at YouTube…
What the person did was/sound similar to what you're telling me…
Lock the image layer and create a new layer >used the square tool >added points and move them where needed >while holding down the control key this person clicked on the eyeball of layer 2…
I don't know if your way has the same effect, but… This worked perfectly for me, holding down the control button while clicking on the eyeball…
I'm now able to select the color underneath the anchor points…

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