My Son Gradually Loses Interest in Drawing

Why on earth wouldnt you let him color? It is entirely too early to be trying to turn him into an "artist"...let him explore and do things as he wants...don't worry about having him draw horisontal and vertical lines!!! You might be frustrating him, as his motor skills are not at that level yet and basically you are asking him to do something that is not "fun"...it is hard work for him at this age! Relax....let him scribble away with whatever color he pulls out of the 64 count crayola box!!!
As to showing him famous artists....I think that is wonderful, just for it's own sake but I hope you aren't trying to show him what you want him to be drawing...let him be a little boy!!
I have a 3 year old grandson who is the most intelligent, thoughtful little 3 year old I have ever met ( I admit, I am predjudiced!! ) but his drawings are basically nothing but "scribbles"....however he has a wonderful time telling me ALL about his drawings....in his mind they are dinosaurs or race cars or something else exciting. Let your son use crayons and paper to just explore life!!

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He is moving on to learning something else. LET HIM. Let him follow his own natural curiosity and interest, and you can't go wrong.

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Give him a handful of crayons and let him color away! At his age, he will learn more from playing and using his imagination. He does not need to be instructed yet and have to do such specific tasks. Drawing will not be fun, for a two year old, nor will it inspire a love for art. It will only cause him to hate it, by turning it into a frustrating task. His job right now, is being nothing then a child. Give him some color and let him have fun.

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He's 2! Most children that age don't have the fine motor skills to sustain any kind of drawing at that age. Especially boys. Let him explore, sample, graze. There is plenty of time to develop interests and talents and an early start does NOT always correlate with a life long passion or skill in a particular area.

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At 2½ their interests change very quickly. Just like the others have said. Just give him a box of crayons and let him go to town.. He will probably put the crayons down and run around and do something else and then maybe come back and start to draw again. Sit there with him and draw on your own paper, but try not to push him to do something. Let him do what he wants.. He will be very proud of his own little scribbles and show them to you, and he may even start coming up with stories that go along with his scribbles. Creativity comes from unstructured play, let them come up with their own "masterpieces" he will get the fine motor stuff down later.

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You live in SFO take him to the DeYoung Museum. I did that with my children.
Go to the Oakland Museum. Go to art galleries.
Finger paints, playdough, plasticine clay, colored pencils are all art methods.
If you learn what you are seeing he will be interested too as you can tell him what you are looking at.
For a child his age let his attention span tell you all. And, let him walk around the museum.

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He's two - he's learning EVERYTHING, and moving from one thing to another. They don't really have an extended interest in doing a lot at this age. You can expose him to things, but don't try to push him to keep drawing when he's done. Perhaps you can change it up with colors, or YOU can draw and ask him to color, etc. But it's totally normal for him to switch to something else.

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Your son may just be bored with it right now, but as his motor skills develop, may find a renewed interest - or maybe not. He just might not be interested in art. Give him some time and see where HIS interests lie.

Try different materials -- play dough is great, so is paint. Little kids love to glue and paste things. Mainly, you have to be prepared for a mess! My daughter, at two, liked the coloring books where all you need to do is paint the page with water for the color to appear -- good for learning to control the brush. (She is a wonderful artist now.) When my son was little, we would draw together -- a plane, a robot. He would tell me what to draw and then he would add to it -- color and scribbles at first, and later more refined additions. Scribble designs are fun: draw a page full of connected loops and shapes, then fill in the spaces with different colors (and as he gets older, different patterns). We used to make a game of trying to fill in the loops so that two touching loops never have the same color.

Is your boy losing interest in everything? Then you need to talk to the doctor. Is he losing interest in drawing because he has gotten interested in something else? That's OK. There are lots of interesting things in the world and he's discovering more of them. You want to encourage this.

(If he were my son, I'd let him use crayons because color is an interesting thing in itself, apart from line. I'm not talking about coloring books.)

Don't panic, and don't push him unduly on the drawing business. You don't want him to start to think art is some sort of punishment. Are you an artist? Go ahead and do your own work. Let him see pictures, but don't do it to pressure him. In time, he might well come back to this interest again. Two years old is still very young.

I remember (vaguely) a story about the famous American artist N.C. Wyeth, who had several children. Nearly all showed an ability in art or music, and he and his wife gladly encouraged them to go in those directions. One of the children was different (of course, it was the one named after the famous father). This child lost his interest in pencils and developed an interest in making wheels turn. Far from being disappointed, Wyeth said, "This one isn't an artist - he's probably going to be an engineer!" So they encouraged him to follow the bent he already had. And sure enough, Nathaniel Wyeth became an award-winning inventor and mechanical engineer.

My 4 year old really didn't care a bit about drawing, coloring or any kind of art activity except for Play Doh until this year. Now, he draws and colors for hours! Every kid is different! My 2 year old loves to scribble around, but only for 10 minutes or so at a time. He's only 2, so I wouldn't give this much thought! Keep the art supplies handy, and it's never a bad idea to expose your child to famous artwork and painting -so go ahead -but he's discovering so much right now, that he's not going to want to sit down and draw all the time.

I found my kids would go through phases. At times they would spend lots of time drawing, etc and then nothing for months. Your son is 2. He is discovering the world around him and there is a lot to be interested in. I always had crayons and paper available for them to use when they wanted.
Also consider your child may never really be interested in art. Every child is different. If you are very artistic, this may be hard for you. Our kids often have traits that are very different from ours. Our job is to encourage their interests, not ours. Can be tough at times. It's way too soon to figure
out what he will be interested it. He needs to be able to try different things at different times. This process takes years. Relax. Enjoy his exploration.

When my daughter was in elementary school she really liked the biographies by Mark Venezia of various artists.

At age 2 I would think your son is getting a good exposure to arts and crafts at a preschool. I personally preferred that preschools that just liked to make the activities available to the students and let them do what they wanted instead of having to do something pre-defined.

For a lot of kids, drawing/painting on an easel is easier than a piece of paper down on a table. Side walk chalk is also fun. I've seen some "window crayons" (that wash off of glass) at places like Target. They seem to wash off of the tiles in the bathtub, too.