Turning urn where length exceeds diameter

[Mark Henshaw]

30 plus years of experience with woodworking but most of my wood turning experience has been with spindle turning. Have a quick question on hollow form turning I hope that someone can help me with. Looking to turn an urn that will have its length exceed its diameter. I also would like to use a constrasting wood for the base of the urn and the lid. Am I better off orientating the wood grain to run the length of the piece (head stock to tail stock), and if so, does the contrasting wood that I will glue onto the base and use for the lid need to have the grain run in the same direction?
Thanks for any words of wisdom,

[Dennis Ford]

I have done hollow forms with both orientations; either can work. Grain parallel to the lathe axis has some advantages while drying, especially if you can avoid having the pith included. Since you will be adding a separate base, consider turning the body with both ends open for even drying and finish turning to final size after it is dry.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

If your "lid" is a finial, or smallish spindle turning, it should be end grain, or grain running the length of the lathe. Small diameter turnings side grain are very fragile.
For urns, I like end grain since it matches the finial. (The grain direction matches)

Mostly I have a question, or, maybe an answer, that you said that the Hollow Form length is longer than the width. I almost always turn HFs in this fashion, in fact, when I do turn a HF "short" it looks rather dumpy. Needs help with some kind of feature. It's hard to explain short forms. Tall forms look better.