The simplest way to explain this:

1. Forget everything you know about the color datatype.  Colors are represented by int's.

2. All the methods named color() return int's.

So, if you want an array of colors:

1. int[] myColors = new int[100];
2. 
   
3. myColors[0] = parent.color(255, 0, 0);
4. myColors[1] = parent.color(0, 255, 0);
5. // etc
6. 
   
7. parent.stroke(myColors[0]);
8. parent.fill(myColors[1]);
9. // or whatever
   

great, thanks for the hint

Suggestion: read or re-read Processing in Eclipse tutorial.