Charles has a prodigious memory and an uncanny ability to record life experiences through his artwork. His love of traveling, people, and historical events informs and inspires many of his creations. His impressive eye for perspective and composition is evident in his finely-detailed cityscapes and expansive landscapes, including the characters that often inhabit them. Charles is well known for his waterscapes with sailboats, cityscapes populated with yellow-lit windows (and the occasional double church steeple) and men and women walking through those locations in pairs. The lines drawn next to the figures' mouths call back to Charles' memories of medical devices commonly used in his youth. This imagery has persisted for decades, alongside other elements that seem to be Charles' personal archetypes of people, places, and things. In addition to his drawn imagery, Charles frequently includes text in his compositions, layering illustration, narrative and snippets of stream-of-consciousness.