Watercolour has long been intertwined with British Art, and Rachel Pedder Smith's work adds a distinctive flair to this tradition. Fascinated by historically collected and stored materials, she considers herself a "voyeur of other people's collections." Her PhD project in 2011 at the Royal College of Art in London saw her spending years illustrating 703 specimens from the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The culmination of this effort was an impressive 18-foot-long painting, demonstrating her mastery in capturing textures, shapes, and colours with precision.

Rachel's fascination with collected and stored dry materials makes her illustrations unique and captivating. She immerses herself in the world of collectors, uncovering curiosities such as tortoise shells, dried frogs, crocodile skulls, or this seed pod from the Afzelia Africana tree species in the Fabaceae family. Through her meticulous representations, she seamlessly blends art, history, and science.

In 2011, Rachel's painting titled "Bean Painting, Specimens from the Leguminosae Family" was chosen to represent contemporary natural history painting in the "Watercolour" exhibition at Tate Britain. The artist had three solo shows in London, including one with Jonathan Cooper, and her paintings adorn numerous notable collections worldwide, solidifying her status as a prominent figure in the intersection of art and scientific illustration.