ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — Walking by faith…not sight.

Local artist Ricky Trione has been living by that verse from 2 Corinthians 5:7 for 11 years since he lost his sight. But he considers it his biggest blessing because God gave him a whole new perspective on life and the bright, vibrant colors that fill it now.

“I grew up being gifted at drawing and would only use black and white because I was a perfectionist and didn’t want to mess up so I didn’t use any colors. Now that I have lost my sight, I love using the brightest, boldest colors out there and have learned that it’s okay to make a mistake,” Trione said.

On Wednesday, Trione made a visit to Gabrielle James art room at Robertsdale Elementary School to give the kindergarten classes a 20 minute lesson in stencil rubbings. “Because blind people can’t depend on their sight anymore, they have to use their other senses like touch, sound and taste so I had to learn how to paint and draw using my sense of touch.”

The students were able to use the stencils Trione made of fish, crabs and other sea life out of “puffy” or textured paint to create their own drawings. “I have images from my childhood in my head and those images are the inspiration for my paintings.”

Trione also explained to the students about one picture he painted that showed three crabs and one of them was a “bully” crab that picked on the other crabs. “If you are bullied like this crab, find the teacher crab and tell her or him about it.” The caption under the picture said “Choose Your Battles” and Trione said he tries to bring some character education into the classrooms when he comes to visit.

Using the “clock” method to mix his colors and know what colors to use, Trione explained that he uses a round palette like a clock with numbers to correspond to different colors.

“I use the ‘ROYGBIV’ (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) acronym to arrange the colors where red is 12, yellow is three, blue is six, violet is nine and white is in the middle. The warm colors are together and the cool colors are together. It has worked really well for me and gotten me used to having a system for doing not just my art, but other things too,” Trione said.

With an art studio upstairs in his Fairhope house, Trione said his wife Bonnie gives him feedback on his paintings and she is his “eyes”. “She is very creative and helps me so much by telling me what should or should not be in my paintings and keeps me on track as far as how many I should be doing each day.”

Trione grew up in Daphne and graduated from Fairhope High School in 1975 and then attended the University of South Alabama where he received a B.A. in Communication Arts. He was sighted until 1993, when a rock from a truck hit his eye and permanently damaged his retina. He was on active duty as a Captain in the Army at the time but had to be discharged after the accident.

“I was in the Army for 19 years but had to move back to Fairhope and learn how to do things differently with only one eye. I started working with disabled people at the Alabama Department of Rehabilitative Services and then in 2000, I had another accident when a piece of tire tread from an 18 wheeler hit me in the other eye while I was broke down on Hwy. 59. This accident left me totally blind and I had to relearn how to do everything,” Trione said.

He had gotten away from his art while in the Army but once he was left blind, he picked it back up thanks to his good friend, Vicky Cook.

“Vicky is the one who got me back into painting by introducing me to the use of textures and using textured paint. There are so many different ways to do art with textures and I learned so much about how colors appeal to your senses. I am so much more joyful now because of my blindness. It is a challenge for me but I have learned through all this that sometimes your sight can get in the way of your art because you are touched on what it looks like and don’t take time to feel what you are doing and the emotion that goes into it,” Trione explained.

Painting everyday and preparing for art shows, Trione said he gets lots of requests for commissions and his favorite thing to paint is sea life. “I’ve gotten a lot of requests for manatees and sandpipers lately. i get requests from all over the country and the world from my website. It’s amazing how many people see my pictures. I am truly blessed. My blindness has brought me so much closer to God because I have to depend on him and others to get through each day. I try to share joy with everyone I see and talk to and my blindness has given me a love for kids and adults with special needs.”

Going to different places around town to find inspiration for his paintings, Trione said he loves to get out and “feel” nature. “Bonnie brought me a dandelion and a daffodil out of the yard and I enjoyed so much being able to feel them and get a sense of how to draw them. When I finished, she said I had captured the image perfectly. I learn so much from doing this.”

A member of the Fairhope Artists Gallery, Trione travels to different art festivals displaying his work and recently got back from the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired in Baton Rouge where the students and teachers bought 14 out of the 15 paintings he brought.

“I had no idea they were going to like them so much they wanted to buy them. I had only brought them to show and display. What a great surprise that was for Bonnie and I,” Trione said.

Using a cane to get around and having a watch, computer and alarm clock that talks to him are some of the adjustments Tirione has had to make in the past 11 years but he is very content with his life and is happy for each blessing God gives him, including a new grandchild he can’t wait to meet.

For more information on Trione’s art, go to rickytrioneart.com or visit his facebook page.