Lennard Kok illustrates his fear of snakes in a colouring book for Apartamento x A.P.C

We’ve never heard of the method of drawing a phobia to tackle it face on, but when looking at Lennard Kok’s new book for Apartamento and A.P.C’s collaboration, it appears that illustrating your fear may be the best way forward.

“Lennard Kok is not fond of snakes,” reads the blurb of the illustrator’s colouring book sold exclusively by A.P.C. “As a child they gave him nightmares that there was one hiding underneath his bed.” Following a terrifying experience where the illustrator watched a YouTube video of a snake’s ability to open a door (what?), Lennard has put pen to paper imagining the life of a pet snake and slithers its way through your household belongings.

“We were asked to create a series of 16 drawings for a children’s colouring book and we where free to come up with our own theme,” Lennard tells It’s Nice That. Due to being a colouring book for children, Lennard drew upon his own fear as child, representing his long time “love/hate relationship with snakes,” he says. “I like how they move and how they merge into their environment, but at the same these are also the two most frightening characteristics of a snake I think.”

Wriggling its way through items such as stiletto heels, sitting atop lamps and immersing itself within a fruit bowl, this snake actually appears more friendly than frightening. “Each illustration/page is a snake combined with an interior object,” explains Lennard. “Visually it was really fun to combine the hard and straight interior objects with the smooth movement and lines of a snake.”

Despite being designed with children in mind, an “everyday life colouring book” that combines the lusciousness of Apartamento magazine, Lennard’s stylistic line work, coupled with its association with label A.P.C, means Lennard’s drawings would be just as satisfying for adults to fill in as it would for kids.