Let's Talk Hemp

Tag: printing on hemp

  • The Green Angel is Coming!!

    The Green Angel is Coming!!

    by Thomas Ivory, Jr.

    The Green Angel is being manifested and she needs YOUR help to take flight!!

    Dismantled, yet not in dismay; in fact nothing but heavenly thoughts are floating by the warehouse as the paper cutter etches out each and every individual serrated leaf.

    Purples and oranges and greens are naturally dyed with naturally grown vegetation and bugs like rabbits brush and cochineal.

    The five components that make up the Angel are her halo headdress, her broad fan wings, her torso buds, her feet roots, and her long glorious leaf train.

    Stunning and mesmerizing is she strutting the catwalk, her leaves waving joyfully in the breeze; the spotlight shining, like the eyes of Zeus, on her glistening royal coloring. 30% hemp fiber, 70% post-consumer fiber, and 100% divine!!

    Never before has Colorado sourced industrial hemp paper been approved as suitable material for the infamous Paper Fashion Show in Denver… until now! Thursday, April 6th, all the goddesses will be dancing at the Denver Center for Performing Arts.

    The week before the Show, Hempsters at the 4th annual NoCo Hemp Expo will get a unique opportunity to interact and engage with the Green Angel herself. She will be on display and featured in this year’s new Fashion Alley – sponsored by Hempy’s and EnviroTextiles of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

    Their hard work will be yours to share along with eco-friendly apparel at the NoCo4. There, you can walk the red carpet to the Digital Workshop Center’s Green Hemp Screen, where you can have your photo taken on the green screen stage and choose your background. Tweet or print photos on hemp paper also!!

    Only now, at this moment, just weeks before any revelations, the Green Angel is still a twinkle in the dress fashion designers’ mind.

    Joel Defender, Kevin Buecher, and Gravie are leading the song to conjure her creativeness. They invite you to join them in cutting and gluing. Every Thursday at 7pm for the next six weeks, the crew gathers at the Loveland Creator Space to make a lot of magic.

    On the catwalk, the Green Angel is no doubt mystical. She holds many surprises. At the end of the runway, her inspiration — the hemp plant in all its glory — is designed for her to unfold her dress, stretch out wide her wings, and hold up her head proud and tall, as the broad fan leaves of the cannabis plant.

    Loveland Creator Space
    Thursdays @ 7pm for next 6 weeks
    320 Railroad Road
    Loveland, CO, 80537

    NoCo Hemp Expo
    March 31st – April 1st 2017
    The Ranch Events Complex
    5280 Arena Circle
    Loveland, CO, 80538

    13th Annual Paper Fashion Show
    Thursday, April 6th, 2017
    Denver Center for the Performing Arts
    Seawell Ballroom
    1101 13th Street
    Denver, CO, 80204

  • A First for Colorado: Tree Free Hemp Is Producing Paper From Seed to Sheet

    A First for Colorado: Tree Free Hemp Is Producing Paper From Seed to Sheet

    For the first time, hemp paper is being produced in Colorado from seed to sheet. Loveland’s Tree Free Hemp has been producing hemp paper since 2013, but until this year, it’s been getting the fiber from other countries. Now the entire process is local.

    “It’s grown in Colorado, it’s processed in Colorado, it’s manufactured in Colorado, it’s printed in Colorado. It’s truly homegrown,” says Morris Beegle, a former concert promoter now focused on promoting hemp through the Colorado Hemp Company, which he founded in 2012, and the NoCo Hemp Expo.

    <a href=”http://www.westword.com/marijuana/a-first-for-colorado-tree-free-hemp-is-producing-paper-from-seed-to-sheet-8683089″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Read the full article here at Westworld</a>

  • First of its Kind: Colorado-Grown, Processed, and Manufactured Hemp Paper

    First of its Kind: Colorado-Grown, Processed, and Manufactured Hemp Paper

    by: Thomas Ivory, Jr.

    As the laser printer singes the first lines of the etching, Kevin Buecher studies the effect of the heat on the paper. He watches through a glass window into the table-size enclosed capsule where a small moving laser glides horizontally along a vertical moving arm. The cream white hemp paper inside is lightly burnt only where the high-powered laser has been programmed to direct heat. Light brown wording, and then slowly an image, appears as the laser cascades down the paper.

    “Exploring laser printing onto hemp paper,” said Buecher, Tree Free Hemp, “gets some really beautiful outputs.”

    This particular paper he is etching is the first of its kind: Colorado-grown, processed, and manufactured. (Sterling, Fort Lupton, and Boulder, CO, respectively.) The hemp stalks were separated into pulp, lignin, and sugars; and the paper is a blend of hurd and fibers mixed with locally sourced recycled post-industrial.

    According to the Artisan Hemp website: “As a material for paper making, hemp is superior – the fibers are very high in cellulose, making them strong and durable; and low in lignin, making it easier to process into pulp without toxic acidic chemicals.”

    2000 sheets were produced for this first all-Colorado handmade small batch of 14×19 size pages. Tree Free Hemp incorporates the domestic supply of what is available on the market to create new and original products. This first go around brought PureHemp Technology and their counter-current reactor technology into the fold as PureHemp Pulp was used to create the first ever batch of Colorado HomeGrown HempStalk Paper.

    Soon expanding from collector prints into industrial paper markets (like commercial print rolls and master cartons, board stock for packaging, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.), “We’re looking at changing the supply from Canada to domestic,” said Morris Beegle, founder of Tree Free Hemp. “Right now, we’re a specialty printer and artist driven focusing on hemp paper.”

    Back at the Loveland Creator Space, Buecher checks his laptop configurations and dials in the laser printer to a slightly higher temperature. The laser is literally burning the etching into the paper, and too high of heat would burn right threw. That is, unless that is the desired outcome.

    He earlier tested the power of the laser (and the strength of the paper) by cutting out a design – a cannabis leaf. He put a small hole in the top and called it a Christmas tree ornament.

    As for these prints, “Each one is unique,” said Buecher, holding up the first sheet to the shop lights. Some words are lightly burnt, while areas of the image – a man in overalls raising his arm – are darker brown. The shop lights warm the various burnt-depths in the paper.

    “Kevin is all about the paper and doing cool stuff,” said Beegle over the phone. “He goes off into these other areas, goes off the path,‘Into the Trees,’ as we like to say. And who knows where that might lead.”

    In the shop, the laser printer rests in standby, and Buecher retrieves the paper from the machine. The image on the sheet is a man thrusting a leafy hemp stalk over his head, with the words: “This is my BoomStalk!”

    “Paper is really just the start,” said Buecher, using magnets in the printer to secure the next blank sheet. “We’re exploring all the artistic connections we can do.”