Sketch your sculpture and establish the size of the piece.
Build a wire armature or a skeleton for your sculpture. This is only necessary if you are planing to make a large-scale sculpture, which might fall apart if it doesn’t have a skeleton. Create the basic shape of your sculpture with the wire. You don't need to add details at this stage.
Warm up the stoneware clay. The clay typically comes in plastic wrapping and it is hard to work with, so you need to soften it. Knead the material until it is malleable enough to form a thin clay coil.
Select a method to build the sculpture. The easiest and most commonly used method is by creating clay slabs and covering the armature. However, if you don't use an armature, you can create basic shapes such as spheres, cubes and cones out of clay and stack or join them. Another method is to create clay coils, which are clay ropes you make by rolling the clay between your hands, and building the sculpture using coils of similar or different thicknesses.
Build your sculpture. If you stacking two elements and the second element is heavier than the first, allow the first element to be leather dry before you add the next, so the bottom piece won't crash under the weight of the second one. To ensure the elements stick together, score the areas to be joined and spread some clay slip over the area before you join the pieces. Prepare clay slip by placing a small lump of clay into an empty yogurt container or any other container filled with water and allowing the clay to dissolve overnight.
Add details to your sculpture. For instance, you can carve motifs on the surface of clay. If you are making a figure, carve the features. Use a pottery needle tool. Smooth the surface of the clay using a moist sponge.
Allow your clay to be bone dry. The drying time depends greatly on the size of the stoneware sculpture you make and the atmosphere humidity.
Fire your sculpture in a kiln. Perform the bisque firing of a stoneware sculpture at an appropriate temperature. The initial firing removes impurities from clay and allows the clay particles to bond together and form a vitrified material.
Apply glazes if you want to add surface texture or color to your sculpture. Beware that the colors of the glazes change once the piece is fired.
Perform the final firing at the appropriate temperature.