The ugliest thing I have ever rug hooked

Well, when I got done with Sol Invictus and laid it down on the floor and took a picture of it, all I could think was "my gosh this is the ugliest thing I have ever rug hooked"!

What was wrong? I decided it was two things. The dark outline around his face and the awful petal rays. Was it supposed to be a flower or a sun?

So out came the dark outline and the petal rays, and in went rainbow outline and rays following the colors on the face. I also went away from straight linear hooking and pebbled the rays like the background. I am loving pebbling, and may have a hard time going back to linear hooking. I've renamed it Sunrise Sunset.

Anyway I like the result. Although it is still not my favorite rug, it taught me a lot about color, value and pebbling. I am still not sure about the darker values of the green on the left side of the face, so I may still do a little value tweaking after I bind off the edges.