Charm vs. NL (complete)

The "Charm Rules" are in effect:

as usual, we play by my rules...

Use only photoshop/illustrator, and start from scratch, not a photo manipulation. Any native PS/Illustrator filter.

This one is slightly inspired by the last challenge with a quote from Picasso. This time we hear from a scientific genius:

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-- Albert Einstein

Your challenge is to find an 'inspiration' from a classic artist (besides Picasso), or a famous photograph, or architecture, or a person. You must then create an ORIGINAL piece and post both your work and the inspiration piece. No photo manips (per the Charm Rules above). So in essence, ignore Einstein and show us your muse.

You have until Saturday nite to post.

okay, here we go... I sure hope I got this challenge right, didn't have much time to work on it, but I think my idea came out quite nicely.

original
mine

I used the idea of escher's cube, you can find it in the bottom left of the original pic.

-NL

Yay! I got to work in the style of one of my favorite artists again!

Mine (self-portrait)
Try as I might...

His
Original #1
Original #2

I am a painter and it's true! I am heavily influenced by Roy Lichtenstein!

NL

Man, being an art student coming across many a painter, Escher is my absolute favorite!That's really weird, you have great taste You must havea look at his other stuff/optical illusions...he was a damn mastermind.

NL I really enjoy optical illusions!

*NL* ...

NL

Charm

Sorry NL, yours was really good, but I really like Charm´s style there.

i've been charm'd

charm

nice nice nice