Will Bishop-Stephens
Tales from Ward 35

Will Bishop-Stephens is a print-maker, illustrator, sculptor and animator based in Bristol. Previous projects include a children's book entitled Wrongboy's Book of Mice published by Walker Books and exhibitions at Spike Island and Brief Encounters Film Festival, Bristol. Will Bishop- Stephens was invited by Picture This to be artist in residence at the Bristol Royal Children's Hospital funded by the United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust, the Wallace and Gromit Grand Appeal, the Arts Council of England Regional Arts Lottery Programme and South West Screen.

Will Bishop-Stephens worked with patients in the Renal and Adolescent Units to animate their daydreams and produce imaginary characters using Flash Animation. The young people made drawings of characters such as Captain Cosmo and Side Kick Elastic Man and Zon and an evil gang of Ninjas and provided an audio description of a simple plot that Will combined on a laptop at their bedsides. The naïve animated style is true to the patient's original drawings and the scenes are combined using an old fashioned movie style introduction.