Copy the greats in private until you understand why they did what they did. Then drop the copy.

Imitation is a learning tool, not a destination. Copying closely forces you to notice choices you would never have spotted from the outside, and once you can feel why a decision got made, it belongs to you. The trouble starts only when the copying goes public and becomes the whole act, because that means you stopped at the studying stage.

Pick somebody whose work you admire and recreate one piece of it exactly, just for yourself. Write down the three choices that surprised you. Then make something of your own using only those three.