Book Dragon Desk Mat & Playmat

A very large dragon. A very small reader. Absolutely no reason to leave.

Natalie Andrewson’s Book Dragon Desk Mat & Playmat features artwork originally created for her Book Dragon Riso print and the 2023 Thought Bubble poster. A great shaggy dragon curls protectively around a tiny reader, creating what may be the coziest possible interpretation of do not disturb.

At 14 × 24 inches, there’s plenty of room to spread out. Use it as a desk mat with room for your keyboard and mouse, roll it out for a card game, or give your dice and character sheets a particularly excellent place to land during an RPG session.

The smooth, silk-like fabric surface is backed with anti-skid rubber and finished with a durable stitched edge. It’s substantial without being bulky, and when real life inevitably happens to it, it’s even machine washable.

Details

Size: 14 × 24 in. (36 × 61 cm)
Thickness: 1/8 in.
Surface: Smooth, silk-like neoprene fabric
Backing: Anti-skid rubber
Edge: Durable stitched border
Care: Machine washable
Artwork: Adapted from Natalie Andrewson’s Book Dragon Riso print, originally created for the 2023 Thought Bubble poster
Great for: Desk setups, computer gaming, card games, RPGs, dice rolling, and extraordinarily serious reading-adjacent business

Why We Love It

Because apparently dragons are book people, too.

We fell for the artwork first: one enormous, wonderfully shaggy dragon curled around a reader who appears to have found the safest and coziest reading nook imaginable.

But this isn't just beautiful artwork transferred onto a mat. It's genuinely useful. It can live on a desk every day, come out for game night, protect a table from enthusiastic dice rolls, or provide a generous play surface for cards.

It sits right in the lovely overlap between art object and useful thing—which is one of our favorite places for an object to be.

About Natalie Andrewson

Natalie Andrewson is an illustrator and comic artist whose work is full of fantastical creatures, strange little worlds, folklore, and visual storytelling. Her colorful prints and paper goods have the wonderful quality of feeling both contemporary and as though they might have been discovered inside a particularly good old storybook.

The Book Dragon is an especially lovely example: a piece of her illustration work transformed into something made to become part of everyday creative life.