Originally posted by doodle
I would certainly advise you to take up a fine art/life drawing class. Animation is essentially observation and life drawing is a great way to perfect this skill.
You really need reference images of some sort to produce decent work (maybe if your really good you can wing it, I doubt it though). You can find some ref’s around on the net but if you have your own designs then your gonna need to draw them out. Even if there just sketches for your own reference, it good to know a bit.
Having a basic knowledge of traditional art WILL help you with every aspect; you can be assured of that. I cant think of one reason why anyone shouldn’t learn the fundamentals.
Here’s a sentence from a article about why it good to go to school to study 3D:
Heed that 
I personally agree with that statement, so much so I kinda temporally gave up learning 3D to focus on classical animation, graphics design and drawing. Software is easy to pick up, I want to spend my education learning the real skills.
That’s not to say you can’t get good without these skills, but you’ll be much better with them. As I said, cant think of any reason not to learn to draw… ANYONE can learn.
Sounds like good advice. However, you say that anyone can learn to draw. Can anyone learn how to draw well? I have never been a great drawer (if that is a word in this sense) and have therefore tried to stray away from anything to do with drawing. Would taking a traditional art course in high school truly make a big difference? If so, I may have to give consideration to that. It always frustrates me, though, because I always feel that people who can draw well are generally born with that skill, or at least the majority of that skill. Is this not true?