Many people do just that.
Chess is not just a game of material. It is a game of space. To understand space, we must not look at the pieces but understand their invisible shapes. You then place a pawn on every square that the piece can attack. If you do this for the rest of the pieces you will find that the Knight is a circle, the Bishop is an X, the Rook is a cross, the Queen is a star, and the King is a square.