g'day Australia! Sunrise Interview

When I got the email about being on the Australian morning show, Sunrise, I immediately wrote back and said yes and would they rather an in person interview?  I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, I worked with Scott Hicks on the movie Hearts in Atlantis years ago and I loved chatting with his family about their home country.  & my friend Meredith has fantastic stories about her time in the country.  One day, one day!!  If I ever make it down and around, I look forward to accepting their invitation to come join them at the studio.

The neatest thing of the whole experience was when I walked in the studio, the producer came right over and said ‘Ashly Covington?  Were you a For Kid Sake Ambassador for Channel 6?’
‘Yes, absolutely!’  My years as a FKS kid were life shaping for me.  It was a program developed by an amazing woman, Norma Blalock.  Norma created a team of kids that represented the television station.  We were at park openings, walked in the parades, read at the hospitals AND we got to ‘work’ at the station.  We had a saturday morning slot on the station and each week we created a new show.  They had us working all sides of production and it was a learning experience like none other.

Well, small worlds are small worlds and it turned out the producer standing in front of me was Sarah Alderson who was one of the producers of the FKS program.  It was incredible to catch up and to be able to make the connection of how those early years shaped everything that we are both doing today.  I’m forever indebted to WTVR TV6 for taking a chance on a group of kids and letting us create, grow and take responsibility for the community.  I’m also forever grateful to my mom who whisked all over town to get me everything I needed for the audition that I told her about probably the night before.  My mom rocks.

Sarah got me all set up with the earpiece and camera frame.  It is funny to try and listen to someone through an earpiece and chat back to the camera.  There was a bit of a delay but I am still impressed that I was able to chat with SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE and ANDREW O’KEEFE with such ease.  They were great fun and I hope one day I can meet them in Australia for an in person chat & ‘hand off’    We wanted to have a little hand judging competition but were unable to get a live feed situated back at my end in Virginia.

Interviews and LaLaLaing it.

This week has been a flurry of awesome.  That always seems to happen when I come to the warm coast.  I adore Los Angeles.  This town always revives me and gets the East Coast winter chill out of my bones (and fingertips)!

I came out for some interviews and some hand modeling work.  I am very excited about the interviews – I cannot wait untill I get the word that I can share and talk more about them!!!!  During one yesterday, I was asked about my first job ever and I found a copy!!!

I remember walking onto the set and not knowing at all what to expect.  I knew I was going to hold a phone and that I would be sharing the image with an adorable little girl.  The photographer, Ron Samardge, was amazing at giving us direction and helping us find a comfortable pose that we could hold for a long period of time.  I remember thinking ‘wow, that sure was easy’ after it was over.  Little did I know then that this was not typical for most hand jobs.  Most of the times when you are hand modeling, you have to keep your head and body out of the shot so you have to think like a contortionist.

This job was my beginning and I have loved the entire journey and can’t wait to see what is next.

Chilling with Jeff Saxman for Hamilton Beach

Got to hang with one of the first people to help me out on the hand modeling journey today!  Jeff Saxman and his assistant Rich were one of my first clients.  I believe they might have been my 2nd job ever!  Today we were working on an industrial something or another for hotels and restaurants made by Hamilton Beach.  I’ve been working for HB exactly as long as I’ve been working with Jeff and I love that these jobs are based in one of the best cities in the country – Richmond, VA!

People Magazine Interview

I woke up this past Friday to a flurry of texts and messages as friends found what I had been wondering about!!  A few months ago, a lovely gal from People Magazine contacted me about an interview.  We chatted on the phone for a few hours and I sent her some of my favorite images.  I had almost forgotten about it when I woke to all the notifications!  The issue was OUT!  I am so excited to see it in person, I still haven’t found a copy!!  Robyn, the owner of Cary St Cafe in Richmond, VA has a copy saved for me!!  THANK YOU ROBYN!!

The beautiful and talented actress, Jivelle Callender, was able to scan and send the article so that I didn’t have to wait till I could hold a copy in my hand to read the entire thing.  THANK YOU JIVELLE!!!

and drum roll – Handy in People Magazine (I’ve come a long way since the National Enquirer days!!)

Click the pic to get to the next page 

Spotted in RiteAid

Walking through RiteAid I found a bunch of my hands on various Hamilton Beach products AND my facey shot for them!!!  Smile and drink yo smoothie!!

 

Land O’ Lakes Butter Commercial

I had a great time traveling to Wisconsin to rock out some butter curls for Land O’ Lakes new television commercial.  The spot is currently on the air!!!!!

Hamilton Beach Days

A great day on set with Double Image for Hamilton Beach.  I’ve loved working with this team since the beginning, I cannot believe I have been lending a hand for their ads since sometime around 2000!  They helped to train me to become a better hand model and always had my back as I started expanding and working around the country.

Grill This Not That

I love being the hand model part of the ETNT team    The books are chock full of fabulous information about eating healthy and making better decisions about food.  I devour each new one when it comes out and love the sneak peeks I get of the upcoming ones.  The 2013 Eat This Not That guide is going to be incredible.  I can’t wait to see it on the shelves.

A friend found a copy of the Grill This Not That in a magazine.  I’m not sure which one this was in as she just emailed me the tearsheet and I can’t find the name of it.

nom nom nom

pretending to chow down with the food stylist, Roscoe.  (we have a whole series of the nom nom shots)

Butter Spreads

It was a butter spreading kind of day!  A perfect spread is a delicate combination between the speed/pressure that I exert and the temperature of the knife and butter.  Talented food stylist and prop masters make sure that once the perfect combination is found, it is repeated for each take.  It is a team effort to get that final moment that makes it to the television screens.

I was pleased to find the butter of all butters, Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter was the go to spread.  A block came home with me at the end of the shoot!

Are you stressed? Anxious? me too…

A friend recently went from feeling stressed to giggling when they stumbled upon this forgotten gem of a photo.  There I was staring out, nervous, worried..would I chew on that finger nail?  haha.  This photo always seems to pop up in the most random places.  Once it was on a dating website with a caption of ‘does the dating world leave you stressed?’

Thats the thing with stock photos.  You never know where they could end up.  I wait patiently for the day I am in Joey’s shoes on that episode of Friends where he becomes the poster boy for an STD.  I did a few stock jobs when I was first starting out as a model, it is a great way to build your portfolio and get paid a little bit for your time.  A roommate found one in a law book for one of her classes.

The high tension photo came from a fun day at a studio in New Jersey where we were creating a lot of handy images.  The photographer noted that I was very expressive and asked if they could do some shots of ‘all of me’ after we finished for the stock rate.  My agent gave the go-ahead (always check with your agent about anything that changes or is added on a shoot day) and we had a fun hour of trying out various scenarios.  The shoot happened right around the financial collapse so they asked for a lot of nail biting and stressing.  There were some funny ones with blocks spelling MONEY and me looking very sad and forlorn.  I have not seen those surface…yet…    Till then, the nervous nail biter (now you know I would never….) takes the lead in stock image usage.

Skincare Routine

I recently asked my friends about their favorite lotions on my facebook page and got a range of products. Some that I’ve tried and some that I will have to try. There are so many different products on the market and it is hard to pick favorites THOUGH I do have my daily skincare routine which I was asked to share…so here goes.

MY FAVES!

Going from right to left

Aura Glow – I adore this stuff. My friend Amy introduced me to this amazing oil when I was in college, long before hand modeling and it has been a staple in my bathroom ever since. It is downright luxurious to put on after a shower. The ingredients are Peanut Oil, Olive Oil, Lanolin & Vit E Oils. YES! All stuff our skin needs to be moisturized and feel soft. I use this from the neck down after every shower and will put it on my hands a few times a day.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Not just for the kitchen This is my not so secret weapon. I use this on my face and hands. I carry a bottle of EVOO with me wherever I go and this is what I put on my hands X # of times a day. Hard for me to say how many times I put it on as it is just a part of my routine. I use it all the time. EVOO is also great as a hair moisturizer. I put it on my hair every other week or so and let it sit for an hour or so and then wash it out.

Liquid Lanolin – This is the pure thick stuff. It goes on heavy and is not something you would want to put on before you went out into the world. This is my ‘before bed’ moisturizer in the winter months. It is almost like a sealant for the moisture in your skin. You don’t need to use a whole lot of it. Liquid Lanolin can also be mixed with other oils! I’ve mixed it with Jojoba oil with great success. I use the Heritage Product brand as I adore the teachings of Edward Cayce.

Alba Botanica SPF 45 – SUNSCREEN SUNSCREEN SUNSCREEN!! So important for the skin. I try to always remember to put this on, year round, before I step into the world. I love the Alba brand because the products are natural, organic and they don’t test on animals. Yeah – love our furry friends.

The Yellow Jar – My friend Emily’s secret recipes for a lemon hand scrub. I don’t know what she puts in here but DANG I love it. My skin feels silky smooth after using in the shower. And it smells great.

AND THE NEWEST ADDITION to my skincare routine –

Pure Harmony Soap.

This stuff is incredible. I have always hated soap. It dries out your skin and leaves it feeling tight..well, that is what I always thought until I tried the Pure Harmony line. I’m using the Peppermint Stick bar right now and will admit to keeping it on my desk for 2 weeks before I tried it out because it smelled so darn good. Seriously. YUM! I want to get a bunch of these bars for next Christmas and put them in a basket in my living room. The smell is incredible. So how would it work for its intended purpose? I wasn’t sure but I knew I loved the ingredients – olive oil, coconut cream, shea butter, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, french white clay, peppermint & spearmint essential oils in the peppermint bar. All amazing products for the skin. I also really liked that the bar is hand made. When I tried it out I was blown away! The soap has a rich creamy lather that nourishes my skin leaving it feeling squeaky clean and invigorated. After drying, my skin feels smooth and soft before I lather on the auraglow! I love this because normally soap leaves my skin feeling one of two ways; the first is that dry tight feeling and the 2nd is oily and greasy, almost like a residue was left behind. The Pure Harmony bar wins for BEST SOAP EVER! I am excited to try the other flavors and love knowing that each bar is handmade with love.

New You Magazine

A last minute editorial was my final job of 2012.  The shoot was for the first issue of New You Magazine which came out THIS MONTH!  That was one of the fastest turn around times for an editorial spread, less than a month from conception to preparation to shoot to edit to printing to distribution (not to mention all the fine tuning throughout.)  New You Magazine, the January issue.

I was excited because I heard that I would be working with the nail artist, Chiharu Natsume again.  She is really great at creating tiny intricate designs on the nails and once I saw the spread of gorgeous jewelry on the props table, I knew she would be decking out my nails.  I was super hoping that the last look would be on both my hands (sometimes they only paint one hand for the shot) so that I could go home for the holidays with badass nails.

It was a great day on set lead by photographer Wendy Hope.  Wendy made finding the right angles with the jewelry while showing off Chi’s nail designs a breeze.  And her shots!!!!   Oh man, we were all huddled around the computer screen drooling over her work.  The faceys were the beautiful twin super models Ieva Aniuylte & Aida Aniulyte.  Gorgeous and sweet and how lucky to have a friend to always travel with.  They told me that they do a lot of work together and are usually always in the same town.  It would be awesome to always have someone to hang out with on out of town jobs.  That rarely happens for hand models  

Town & Country – Bridal

I was very excited to be chosen for the Town & Country Bridal Issue (on stands now.) It would be my first time working with the incredible photographer, Carlton Davis.  Stockton Hall, one hell of a props stylist and friend, had first shown me Carlton’s work a few years ago and I had hoped to one day collaborate on something amazing with him and a bridal shoot gave us gorgeous props, beautiful sparkly rocks to play with when creating the shots.

Not only did we get the most incredible of rings to play with, we also got Fleury Rose and her nail creations.  Seriously – stop reading this right now and go to her website.  Check out the Artists Favorites section.  Just – wow!  She does that all by hand.  In addition to being able to create tiny galaxies of designs on nails, she is a seriously cool person.

Had a blast with Carlton and the T&C gang.  Love a set with great music and great people, Stockton was right about a day onset with Carlton being inspiring for creating amazing shots AND just being FUN!

Nails being beutified by Fleury Rose.

Interview in Canada’s Fashion Magazine

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with a fabulous gal named Olivia.  She wa

nted to know all about hand modeling and how I got started as she was writing a piece for Fashion Magazine.  We chatted for over an hour as she was fascinated by all the little details that go into getting the perfect shot and all that also goes into keeping up perfect hands.  Lots of time and consistent care!!!

They decided to save the piece for their 35th Anniversary issue which was this November.  What an honor to be included in the anniversary issue.  I love the hand drawings they added to show the hands emoting.  hahah  

Dukes Mayonaise – Chocolate Cake

MMMMMMM, I love a good Chocolate Cake.   My favorite cake EVER comes from the Ukrops Bakery that is located in the Martin’s Grocery Stores in and around Richmond, VA.  That cake is a fabulous yellow cake with the most delicious chocolate frosting that I have ever tasted and I’ve tried a lot of great cakes.

It was a truly great day on the set of the new Dukes Mayo spots (being a Southerner – DUKES MAYO is the ONLY true Mayo) when I found out we would be creating a chocolate cake for the spot.  AND a totally edible chocolate cake, which meant we would all get to snack once the spot was created.  A lot of commercials have food stuffers, mashed potatoes inside lasagna and other various tricks to make the food look delicious, that usually renders is inedible.  Lucky for us, this was not going to be that type of day.

The crew was also using the RED cameras that just capture everything.  The camera (with an awesome director ) can truly make the smallest things come alive.  One of my favorite bits from the spot is the flour sifter.  I was sifting it as fast as I possibly could yet with that camera every grain of flour is captured.  Truly beautiful capture.

This might be one of my favorite hand modeling commercials out there.

Pizza Hut Daze

MMMMMMMMM – nothing like the smells of a pizza day (or a chocolate chip cookie day), the Pizza Hut cooks brought their A Game in getting everyone on sets mouths drooling.  They were even so kind as to put out a few pizzas that didn’t make the Hero pizza cut on the crafty table.  Pizza with stuffed edges and it was really good.

The shot was a really cool spinning pizza with hands reaching in and pulling out slices at specific times.  I got to work with two fantastic male handys, Robert Amirante & Tom Nikko, so that made for an easy day.  They are wonderful to work with because they are both really focused.  When the camera starts whirring, we each have to hit the mark at exactly the right time for focus on the set camera track, the action being each person reaches in at predetermined times and pulls a slice from the pie which is spinning on the table.  It can sometimes be tricky, coordinating all the actions, so it is a relief to work with seasoned pros who always hit their beat on the director, Alex Fernbach’s metronome.  I enjoy working to a metronome as I find it sound track to hitting the mark each and every take on a camera move shot.  It also reminds me of my best friend who is a drummer  

I had a great time on this shoot and turned into one of those small world situations, where one of the clients turned out to be the cousin of my god brother!  ha    Love how everyone is so connected

Womens World Magazine

Got to spend an awesome day getting incredible manicures with the lovely hand model Christina Ambers. We had a lot of fun showing off the holiday looks and playing with the super fun props.

mmmmmm peppermints

Silver Brocade Polish from Karma Organic

WOW! It’s all I can say. And my mom says so, too.

My mom loves red nail polish on her toes (they have been painted red since I can remember). Since I became a hand model, I’ve been the one painting them for her. It’s great practice for me with a dark color and then she gets to have a visible reminder of how long I’ve been gone. When the polish starts to grow out, it means I’d better get my bottom back home for a visit.

On my visit in October, I brought home a bottle of the Silver Brocade from Karma Organic. I put it on my toes and begged my mom to let me put it on hers. She did not want to change from her red, but I persisted and told her that it would help me to know how it wears on someone who is in a pool a lot. My mom exercises with her friends in a pool most days of the week. She also doesn’t treat her fingers and toes as carefully as I do, and I thought she would really put the polish to the test.

When I swiped it on, her eyes got big, and she said “WOW – That’s Silver!”

That was the same impression I had – I fell in love with the color instantly. The color is so rich and silver. It is vibrant and it covers like a dream. It’s almost like you had poured a silver mixture right on your toes. My mom was hesitant, as it was not her red but she agreed to try it out and I promised to change the color when I was home again. At Thanksgiving, when I was visiting, I asked her what night she would like her pedicure so she could go back to Old Faithful Red. She smiled and said, “The silver hasn’t dinged at all, let’s not change it now.”

I was confused. “Mom, it’s fine, you don’t have to wear it for me”

And then she confessed that the color had really grown on her and that she had been getting a lot of compliments at the pool. Her toes just sparkled under the water! I’ve since had to take my color off, as I had a job, but when I spoke to my mom the other day and asked how the polish was holding up after two months she said, “Great! I love it! Perhaps over the Holidays we could freshen it up because my toes have grown out but the polish that is on is still perfect.”

I asked her, “What about your holiday red toes?”

She said, “this year my toes are going to shine!”

Check out all their awesome colors.

http://store.karmaorganicspa.com/nail-polish.html

Nails by Sophy Robson for Sephora

The British Nail Artist, Sophy Robson flew over to NYC to work with Sephora on her nail art line.  She is an amazing artist and I was psyched when I realized I was getting the Cherry Blossom nails!  Sophy is a lot of fun and had wonderful stories about her nail adventures.  She is one cool lady!

CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!

what the shot looked like from my angle.  We tried having me come right in but the picture frame wasn’t laying right.  Eventually, we cut a hole in the bottom and I stuck my hand through and plugged the hole as they added all the crystals.

& here is the final ad!!

June issue of Cosmo Magazine

The fun day that I had with Lisa Logan’s talented fingers dressing up my nails for Cosmo is finally out!  I had a blast playing hands for the gorgeous model.  She was a great sport as there were a few lip grabs which is always funny, considering I can’t see what my hands are doing as I am crouching and hiding behind the model

Handy Spotting

Found a whole lot of my left hand on an aisle for Hamilton Beach while out shopping with my mom!

Tear & Pull Aparts for Lean Cuisine

Today was one of those deliciously steamy moments you see, when the Hero food is being pulled apart to show off the yummy that lies inside.  The Hero food deserves its Hero moment and that is what today was about.  We were showing off a new product from Lean Cuisine and it was a team effort.  What you can’t see in the still from the playback camera is all the people huddled around the table.  One prop guy on steam, the other keeping the food at the right temperature to hand to me the moment playback yells ‘speed.’

My giant bug glasses!  These babies are handy to have as hand models are often staring right into very intense lights while manipulating the products.

All night shoots for The Cracker Barrel

Our super dooper glasses make us look like bug people!  We say we have to wear these glasses because of the intense lighting but really it is so you can’t tell we are sleeping while sitting up at 4am.  Jimmy Furino and I had a blast on our all night shoot in the middle of nowhere Florida.  We shot from 10pm to 5am!!

Lean Cuisine Spots are on the air!

There are 3 Lean Cuisine spots running right now featuring my handy work. The spot are all part of a ‘Book of Truth’ series that they are doing. Keep an eye out for Myth #14, #22 & #35! You can only see my hand at the beginning opening the book BUT that does not mean that I was being lazy for the 3 days of shooting last spring. I am working on all the food hero parts of the commercial. The ‘Hero’ of a commercial is the shot that shows the food in a state of perfection, the yummiest bite of whatever is being sold

You can see me showing off the cheese in the pizza pull and again in the fork lift. These quick little moments take a lot of amazing people to get right. We were working with some amazing food stylists to get the cheese so perfect.