SIERRA VISTA — Above the entrance to the cafeteria is a big, blue, painted cow mounted on the wall.

Consider it Heather Johnson’s senior gift to the school.

The AP art studio student, for a project, designed a cow for the Lucerne, The Art of Dairy “Cows and History” Art Contest.

“It started off as a piece of paper with a cow,” said Laurie Giangregorio, Johnson’s art teacher. “You drew whatever you wanted revolving around history.”

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Johnson said she wanted to do something that she felt would stand out from the crowd, whom she predicted would do designs based around historic battles, so she chose to do a design based on African history from the 1960s, when 17 countries declared their independence.

So her design was a zebra and rhinoceros dancing and fireworks. She called it “Cowabunga, We’re Free.”

A month later, as one of 6,000 entries, she was notified that she was one of 30 finalists and was sent a 100-pound fiberglass cow to paint her design on and just a few weeks to do it. However, because she had to wait for the proper supplies to arrive, the painting really got done during spring break.

“It was really hard,” Johnson said. “At first I was going to freehand it,” she said, but then she decided to project her image onto the cow and trace it. “Very hard trying to get everything in the right places.”

Giangregorio even pitched in to help Johnson paint the cow.

Once the cow was painted it was placed on display at Safeway for people to view.

“It was really awesome to see the cow at Safeway,” Johnson said.

Though Johnson didn’t place in the contest, her school does get to keep the cow, which Johnson said was strange at first to see mounted on the wall.

“I freaked,” Johnson said of when she first saw it. “It’s such a random place to see a cow.”

Giangregorio said she loves having one of her student’s works up on display for the whole school to see.

“Her work is just so beautiful,” she said. “Her figures are just so precise, she’s such a careful worker.

“I am proud.”

And Johnson said it’s definitely an experience she’ll remember.

It’s something to talk about in the future,” Johnson said with a smile. “I got to paint a cow.”