I would suggest trying gessoed masonite for your surface. There is an ACEO supplier on EBay that I buy from and she has a wide selection of blanks to try: look into the Artist Multisurface board, that she sells. It is sturdy, and will not need to be primed with Gesso, but you could, and use oils. Her store is : rurallj
I'll try to add a link:
(click)
Oh, and I am currently trying to list midweek, with a 7 day auction, to get the weekday and the weekend shoppers/browsers.
Hope this helps. The shop has a wide (and I mean wide) variety of blanks--affordable too--so you can try many surfaces; even leather aceo blanks!
Imelda
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Edited by imeldasart at 02/08/2008 10:07 AM PST