SELECT isn't meant to do some painting with color. If you actually want to paint you need to use SCULPT instead. There's a paint brush in the Volume brushes toolset as well as in the surface brushes.
Note: You need to select a Color (by default it's white) before painting.
Note2: To see this surface color you need to set the MeshColorMode to VertexColor. You can set this in Preferences as well as via the Hotbox (press Space on your keyboard > Hotbox pops up > In its Color section activate (dark means active) the blue sphere)
SELECT is just a triangle selection highlighting the selection in orange. There's a brush selection where you can click and drag the brush on the surface > triangles inside the brushes radius get selected (orange). Doing several clicks with the first click in empty space you can define a polygon (red line) > all faces inside that polygon get selected. Similar to this is clicking in empty space and keeping the left mouse button pressed > you'll draw a freehand "curve" and all faces within that curve get selected. Doesn't that work?