Colored Icons In NavigationView

Yes you can add colored icon using menu group items:

<item
        android:id="@+id/drawer_artist"
        android:icon="@drawable/artist"
        android:title="Artists"/>

And for highlighting the selcted item Use the code below for default selection:

navigationView.getMenu().getItem(0).setChecked(true);

And You can select(highlight) the item by calling

onNavigationItemSelected(navigationView.getMenu().getItem(0));

Edit

If you are using navigationview you can edit option for changing the colortint of icons as follows:

    <android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:id="@+id/navigation"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
    android:background="@drawable/bg_all"

    app:itemIconTint="@android:color/white"
    app:itemTextColor="@android:color/white"
    app:theme="@style/list_item_appearance"
    app:menu="@menu/drawer_menu" >

Edit

If you set navigationView.setItemIconTintList(null); you will get colored icons.

You can set it in your Activity.Class

navigationView.setItemIconTintList(null);