I think the study and practice of fundamental techniques is directly tied to training your creative side. But they're also independent skills, in a sense. I see far too many young artists who focus solely on technique, at the detriment of their creativity. Classical atelier programs can train an individual to create astonishingly life-like representations... but too often lacking entirely in any sort of creativity.

On the flip side, a lot of art schools have focused so much on creativity that they've lost their grounding in technique. So you get a lot of creatively profound but technically incompetent graduates.

Neither are great options. But training technique and creativity together seems like a good choice.

Only personal experience to share here, but I can comfortably say that as my technical skills increased, so too did my creativity. I was always worried as a kid that I wasn't "creative" enough to be a decent artist. But when I knew how to express ideas, for some reason I had an easier time coming up with those ideas in the first place.