Usually when I knit a picture I take a photo or a drawing, and translate it into a chart. Sometimes I work more freely by looking at an image without charting it, just keeping it right there in front of me all the time. In this picture however, I just wanted to knit a tree, without charting and without planing. This kind of knitting is like telling a story, inventing it as I go along, or as kids makes a play/perform: then this branch goes here, and that color starts there and so on. When I finished the picture, it reminded of these trees I love so much, and here is a photo of one:

For a bigger image of the knitted picture, visit http://www.pictureknitting.com/tree_img.html and if you try your hands in this form of free knitting, I would love to see it.