Harold the Artiste is the ninth episode of the series Harold and the Purple Crayon that aired on February 23, 2002.
Summary[]
Harold was unable to sleep, as looking at the picture he painted, there was something about it that he had to take care of but didn't know what. Looking around in his room it hit him, the circles in his painting weren't as round as the other circles to be found in his room, and just looked lopsided and wrong. He tries to paint better circles, but they still don't look right, and Harold gets frustrated. He decides that if he copies a better artist, he can be great just like them.
Harold takes his purple crayon and draws into his imagination. Knowing that he needs to get to the museum to see the artists' paintings, he draws a straight path to walk down but he has no luck finding anything on the empty path. He remembers that the museum was in the city, so he hops off the path and draws a bus stop to get there. After a long time of waiting the bus arrives, but before Harold could ride, he had to pay the driver with quarters. Harold draws some round quarters, but the circles are still bad, and they aren't accepted. Eventually Harold draws a ticket, and it works.
While Harold was riding the bus he decided to draw and practice some circles, but even though the circles he made were not really circles, they still made perfect heads for people that form and ride the bus with Harold. The bus stops at the art museum, and when Harold steps out, he is shocked at how many steps were on the entrance going up. He began climbing up and eventually he draws funky circled balloons. It lifts him up and after some catastrophic wind, he makes it to the very top and goes inside. Harold draws a ticket for the museum usher and sees all the wonderful paintings in the gallery. He creates an easel to begin copying the paintings he sees, but after some drawing, he thinks he just took a messy picture and tosses it out. Harold moves his easel to a painting that appears to be completely made up of little dots, so he decides to make his own picture out of dots. A musical number follows regarding Harold's drawing skills.
Harold is still having trouble drawing, but he still won't give up. He decides to copy a painting of a windmill and does a fantastic job replicating every detail on it, but when he finishes the windmill actually starts blowing air, wobbling Harold's stool and making him actually go into his own drawing on the easel. One of the windmill blades pick up Harold as it rotates, and from up above he can see the world in his artwork, including a girl by the water washing her clothes. The windmill spins faster, eventually making Harold fly off it but he lands safely into the water. Harold draws a wonky life preserver with an attached rope that he tosses to the girl, while it was wonky it still saved him. To thank the girl, Harold draws a washing machine and shows her how it works after she seems confused about it. Now that the girl had free time, she shows Harold how to make perfect circles, by skipping stones in the water which creates round ripples.
Harold was sure that he now knew how to make perfect circles. Harold gets out of the painting with the help of a man paddling in a canoe, and continues to see if he can draw circles with no help. He sets up a new easel and decides to copy a painting with cans of soup, where a circle is in the middle of each can. But the first time the cans, and the circles, look wobbly, and so does the other times he draws the same picture. Harold crumples up his bad pictures and kicks his stool which causes the easel to move around. Luckily, he catches it in time, but the cans in the picture fall out and turn into colorful dots, which also transitions to another song. After the song, Harold learns that maybe he could never draw perfect circles, but it didn't matter, as looking at all the paintings, everyone sees things differently. Getting tired, Harold draws his bedroom window in front of a moon painting and jumps into bed, but before he can officially go to sleep, he uncrumples his clown drawing and puts it back up.
Trivia[]
- Moral: Everyone has a different art style and their own way of seeing things. Don’t get discouraged if your work isn’t perfect. You can always improve, but your style makes your art special.
- Some of the paintings in the museum include Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, and A Sunday Afternoon by Georges Seurat.
- The soup cans in one of the paintings look similar to the classic Campbell’s soup.
Errors[]
- During the second song sequence named "Circle Head", when Harold stares at the Van Gogh painting, his eyebrows are missing.