Great exercise.
I believe talent is what you are born with and must develop it to turn it into a skill. One can hone their talents and become great at what they understand. Many people have talents for all sorts of things and when you see someone with a natural knack for throwing a football, baking or cooking, driving a car very fast or playing a musical instrument…. we always say…. they missed their calling and laugh about it, but many times that is absolutely true.
Years ago the Russians and Chinese actually trained very young children into superstars and practically created talent in gymnastics, mathematics and many other areas to excel in certain arenas. The problem turned out to be, they were usually quite inept at anything else in life. Kinda like robots.
Pertaining to the sign or artistic end of the spectrum…. I believe with today’s computers and equipment…. one can very easily be trained to be good. That would be what I would call ‘Book Trained’. There are those that can draw, paint and convey from eye to hand just about anything… those are the artistic people and if they follow drawing as a career… can usually breeze through what others have great difficulty in learning, but when the natural artist tries to learn the technical end of things from scratch… they then are at somewhat of a difficult disadvantage.
So, years ago, it had to be a natural born talent, where today… I think you can learn the whole nine yards… minus the drawing capabilities. Yes, you now need both.