You may hear from your art student friends, "A REAL ARTIST DOESN'T TRACE!" I heard it as an art student, so have you, so have thousands upon thousands of other artists during their lifetimes. There are many artists who aspire to so much more whose work does not grow because they never learn to use the technology that we've been blessed with to help them grow, which is unfortunate.
Stop listening to art STUDENTS and listen to artists who are MAKING A LIVING FROM THEIR ART. Many art students will not get very far in their pursuit of a dream simply because they have allowed themselves to become trapped in limited thinking. Imagine what Star Wars or Terminator would have been had Disney, Lucas or Cameron not used developing technology to bring their visions to life. Enjoy the technology that you have available to you. Use it and GROW. In this video, Neal Adams talks about how using the camera gave an edge to great commercial artists like Rockwell, Struzan and Peak. Salty language ahead! Enjoy the video.