My father taught painting and drawing at the college level for 35 years, and he believed anyone could be taught to draw, with practice (some need more practice than others, obviously). He was a Yale-trained painter who started out in ab-ex and ended up a super-realist; he was a master craftsman, and many of his students went on to become well known in the NY art world. He used to say that drawing is a largely mechanical process--a matter of connecting the eye and the hand, no special "gift" required. My own experience as a writing teacher has shown me that "talent" is about 40% desire, 58% hard work, and maybe 2% some other, mysterious thing that makes some students "get it" faster than others. Knowing how to draw has about as much to do with making art as knowing how to change your oil does with building a car from scratch.