Sandy Rhodes' training for botanical art began as a little girl. Accompanying her father's walks on his Virginia cattle farm they played an ongoing game of "name that plant". He first taught her to look at a plant or tree by its gross shape and bulk. As she grew, he showed her distinctions in the texture of bark, the spread of branches, the shape and size of leaves and needles, flowers, and fruit. In winter, he showed her the cracked acorns squirrels dropped on the ground.

Sandy studied art at Radford University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Delaware State University. Her career in art started as a fashion illustrator. It evolved to art teacher, museum guide, and museum specialist. Along the way she restored a 1791 Eastern Shore home, labored in its gardens, worked and studied decorative arts at the Winterthur Museum, and visited the classical gardens and museums of Great Britain, France, and Italy. For several years she has studied botanical illustration in the studios of Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania. She has been in shows in Delaware, Virginia, and The Philadelphia Flower Show as a member of the Philadelphia Association of Botanical Illustrators. She lives in Delaware and Oxford with her husband and four cats.

"The beauty of nature can be found in the great and the small; in the grand vistas of the Hudson River School or lying on a blanket in my back yard. I love the Constable and Turner landscapes, their historical and romantic perspectives, but the most rewarding view of nature comes in close-up: a single flower, a small raft of plants, the seeds, the roots, even the weeds and bugs."