After two years at the Art Institute, Ballantyne joined Kling Studios, where she painted Rand McNally maps and illustrated books for Cameo Press.
While there, she designed direct mail pin-up brochures for the company, and was eventually given the honor of creating an Artist's Sketch Pad twelve page calendar.
That image, of a pigtailed girl with her bathing suit being tugged down by a small dog, has become an American icon.
Subjects included comedian Jonathan Winters, Robert Smalley of Hertz, and Major General John Leonard Hines.
She often resented the fact that the Coppertone girl was her most famous work, saying "Big deal, it's only baby art.