I just learned that Joyce Ballantyne Brand, the artist who painted the famous little blonde Coppertone Girl with her doggie, passed on this month. Her daughter (the model for the Coppertone girl, actually) sells on eBay and I just found this news on one of her auctions.
Joyce Ballantyne was most famous for her paintings of American pinup girls. Ballantyne's style immediately struck me as similar to Gil Elvgren's, and then I learned that Elvgren was one of her teachers and mentors, so that's not so surprising. She, like Elvgren, believed that a pinup should be the girl next door, only moreso; not some unapproachable beauty, but an everyday American gal caught in a moment of surprise for the passerby to see.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
The backyard pond now has a waterfall
Our little pond now has a small waterfall with the water trickling over limestone slabs. It's very pretty.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Dumpy Is No More
It's a momentous day in the Stahl household. Dumpy, the faithful Dumpster who has swallowed old plaster and lath, moldy floor coverings, rotten studs, sodden insulation, and many other icky things without a murmur of complaint, left on a big truck today to go live with another family. We got tired of paying $25 a month to have Dumpy live on our lawn, plus another $85 or so every time he needed emptying, and while the demolition isn't entirely complete we think we can handle the rest of it with just regular trash pickup.
I'm sure the neighbors were all wondering when, if ever, we were going to send Dumpy back to wherever it was he came from. I'm happy to say that time has come.
I'm so excited because the spot he was occupying was a parking slot where maybe we can put one of the boats now so it won't be out in the middle of the lawn. (Some of us think a boat is a very ornamental piece of lawn art, while others of us do not agree.)
Thursday, May 04, 2006
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