Watercolors are the perfect medium for interpreting the world from the deck of a sailboat. For Margaret McCrea, marine painting is a passion, watercolors her medium of expression. Combining an art background with a sailing career at US Sailing, she joined Peter McCrea aboard his 32-foot Freedom, Panacea, as first mate in 1987 and has painted full time ever since.

Whether ashore or sitting in cozy island anchorages, paint and brushes illustrate colors and textures of coastlines visited. Painter of images seen from the sea, her views are transcribed either as illustrations in a daily journal or on small sheets of watercolor paper. These paintings in colors of water represent individual segments of her life and are offered for anyone who may share similar interests.

Having sailed the eastern seaboard from Cape Breton to Key West to Trinidad, crossing the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas, she has no lack of stimulating and exciting material for paintings. When the boat is seasonally hauled, she turns scenes of her neighborhood along the St. George River in Thomaston, Maine or images taken from her daily journal into framed works of art.

Combining art and history, she also works on a body of work covering Thomaston, Maine during the clipper ship era. Featured are architectural elements of the stalwart white houses of adventurous sea captains and their families, who lived in this prosperous seafaring coastal Maine town of mid-19th century New England.

She presents slide lectures of various cruises, sharing tips and techniques on how to paint while traveling. She has taught Elderhostel workshops and gives group instruction on plein aire painting.

Her work may be viewed at Art of the Sea in South Thomaston and Rockland, Maine and in Arnold's Marine Art Gallery in Newport, Rhode Island. She is a Professional Member of the International Society of Marine Painters and is a member of the American Society of Marine Artists.