Making progress on Alex in Pop Color

I have been working on Alex in Pop Color, although my hooking is a bit slower now that I am dealing with a torn up house.  I just finished the second face in the series of six that make up the center of the rug.  Each face is hooked with a different color plan.  The first one I hooked was done in the primary colors, red, yellow and blue.  The second face I did as a monochromatic study in purple (see photo below).  It demonstrates the importance of hooking by value instead of color.  Here is Alex's face, and it clearly is his face, but it is created by hooking particular values (lighter and darker wool in the same color) of purple (Jack Horner Plum #111) next to each other.  The lighter areas are prominent and the darker areas recede. 

Alex in Pop Color progress report

Hooking in this small cramped space hasn't been great, I must say that.  But I am making some progress on my new rug for Phyllis' merit program.  Alex in Pop Color has its first block finished, one of six planned.  This rug is a rug about the color wheel and various combinations of color.  In this first block, I hooked the three magic primary colors, red, yellow and blue.  The next block I will hook is a monochrome block where I will use all purple.  So I will have to get the differentiation through value rather than different colors as I did with the primary block.  I have also been working on hooking the border which is a wide border that creates the color wheel around the central blocks of Alex's face.

My new rug...Alex in Pop Color

For Phyllis Lindblade's Merit Program, I have to hook a color wheel rug and several 10" by 10" studies of color combinations.  So I am putting it all together in one rug like I did for Got Wool?  This rug (Alex in Pop Color) will have a color wheel border which I'm hooking in 8-cut, and six 10.5" by 10.5" center blocks of Alexander's face.  I am hooking his face in false color like an Andy Warhol study.  Each block will be the same picture hooked using different color wheel combinations.  The first one I'm completing is the three primary magic colors, red, yellow and blue.  Here is the picture I started with, one of my favorites from a couple of years ago when Alex decided he wanted to "pose" near a fountain in Rice Village.