Did you learn to write or draw without studying the samples of artists and authors before you?
Of course, their limited motor skills get in the way, but they're working on it.
Regardless, if we go back a few centuries, humans definitely demonstrated their ability to physically draw on paper, without sampling from sources other than their eyes.
But even if we were to consider that human eyes are effectively a way to “collect” samples, that’s another thing not taken into account in the aforementioned article.